INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF HEIGHT VARIATIONS ON NATURAL VENTILATION IN HIGH-RISE RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Currently, high-rise residential buildings in Singapore, especially those built by the Housing and Development Board, do not consider natural ventilation an important aspect of design. Due to restrictions in site planning and budget, building blocks of same sizes are often arranged in a rigid manner within a precinct, which does not encourage natural airflow into the microclimate within. This paper explores improving ventilation qualities within a precinct through varying building heights based on an existing housing estate in the Punggol area. Investigation is carried out through the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations. Buildings within the precinct have their heights modified within the digital model in two configurations and at various degrees. Simulations are carried out for both north-north-east and southern wind directions and results for magnitude of air velocity are used to evaluate the various configurations. Results show that varying building heights can improve the velocity of wind around buildings. However, variation in building height needs to be large enough for significant changes. Staggering the buildings across different rows also improves overall conditions compared to having the same configuration for different rows. Overall, variation in building height is an easily applicable method to introduce more wind into a cluster of buildings if applied at the early stages of design.