Pre-print of paper to be presented at the 3 rd International Solar Cities Congress 2008, Adelaide, Australia, 17-21 February 2008 1 Dynamic Breathing Buildings to Combat Global Warming Alexander R. Brown * , Mohammed S. Imbabi * □ and Andrew D. Peacock □ * School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, Scotland, UK □ Environmental Building Partnership Ltd (EBP), Edinburgh EH12 9DQ, Scotland, UK s.brown@abdn.ac.uk 1 m.s.imbabi@abdn.ac.uk andrew.peacock@environmental-building.com ABSTRACT Dynamic breathing building (DBB) is a new, innovative approach to construction that effectively reduces heat loss / gain through the fabric of a building, delivers pre-tempered ventilation air that has been filtered of Particulate Matter (PM) and reduces the operating and capital costs of the building. By drawing ventilation air in through a permeable Dynamic Insulation (DI) layer it is possible to capture the heat / coolth that flows out of the building and bring it back in to dramatically reduce the energy consumption associated with heating / cooling indoor spaces – i.e., the skin of the building effectively acts as a heat exchanger. The Energyflo™ cell is an innovative, modular DI product that has been developed to enable DBBs to be constructed. Energyflo™ cells have been installed in the roof of a building to demonstrate and evaluate the DBB approach in a full scale domestic setting – a detached family home - at a site in Balerno, Edinburgh (UK). This project, which is supported through the Carbon Trust RD&D Programme,, CALA Homes Ltd and the Environmental Building Partnership (EBP) Ltd, has been well received by construction professionals throughout the UK and in other countries at a time when minds are focused on finding ways to reduce energy use and carbon emissions in the built environment. This paper presents the results from 3-months of pre-occupancy monitoring of the Balerno project house. Further data will be subsequently gathered over a full year of post-occupancy monitoring. In addition, reference is made to the findings from a recent trial in Abu Dhabi (UAE), where the versatility of the DBB approach in cooling mode has been established. To conclude, DBBs can offer step-change reduction in the carbon footprint of any building while at the same time providing generous volumes of fresh, filtered ventilation air to occupants and cleaning up the outdoor environment. The authors encourage developers and architects worldwide, without reservation, to apply DBB principles in their future building projects. 1. INTRODUCTION The need to reduce the CO 2 emissions attributed to the built environment is pressing. Dramatic cuts are necessary if the global temperature rise associated with man-made climate change is to be held below catastrophic levels (Bows, 2006 and IPPC, 2007). In addition, buildings have to provide indoor environments that enhance the health and well being of their occupants. These twin aims are difficult to reconcile via conventional building design methodology which will always seek to limit ventilation levels in buildings to minimise energy consumption, resulting in numerous well catalogued health risks to occupants (Jones, 1999, Howieson et al, 2003 and Ridley et al, 2006). Natural ventilation solutions are often sought to deal with these twin aims. However, this approach is increasingly restricted as a consequence of ingress of pollution and noise through ventilation openings in buildings, a circumstance that is worsening as a consequence of increased traffic volumes particularly in developing cities. Dynamic Breathing Building (DBB) is a novel approach to building that has been developed in the last 5 years by the authors to specifically address the issues of built environment energy consumption, indoor air quality and the health and well being of building occupants. In conventional construction, walls and roofs and floors form the outer shell (envelope) of the building, typically comprising of an external rain screen, an insulation layer, and an internal ‘dry’ surface. A multi-functional, modular Dynamic Insulation (DI) product, the Energyflo™ cell, has been developed by the Environmental Building Partnership (EBP) Ltd to replace conventional insulation while leaving the rest of the envelope layers substantially unchanged. The result is a DBB system where one or more elements of 1 Corresponding author.