PLEA2012 - 28th Conference, Opportunities, Limits & Needs Towards an environmentally responsible architecture Lima, Perú 7-9 November 2012 Characterization of summer thermal behaviour of “Class A” office buildings in Santiago, Chile. CLAUDIO VÁSQUEZ 1 , ALEJANDRO PRIETO 1 , CARLOS AGUIRRE 2 1 School of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile 2 School of Civil Construction, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile ABSTRACT: This paper is part of an ongoing research related with the study of energy performance of “class A” office buildings constructed in Santiago in the last decade. The work presented is the selection of cases to be studied, considering shape and façade parameters, and the characterization of the thermal behaviour registered in summer season. Summer is the most critical season in Santiago because of solar radiation, that is why is critical to have real data to evaluate the situation. The characterization presented show that there are no design criteria applied to ensure an adequate energy performance of “class A” buildings in Santiago. Keywords: office buildings, thermal comfort, Post-Occupancy Evaluation, façade systems INTRODUCTION In Chile, façade construction market has been developed since 90’s by international companies that generated an important process of technological transference. The performance of chilean economy in the first decade of the 21th century allowed an important evolution of the office building typology as well, assuming the curtain wall as a standard façade solution. The real-estate market has generated a classification considering construction quality, location and square meter price for office buildings. This self-certification groups office buildings in two clusters: “Class A” and “Class B”. The “Class A” contains the top buildings, so they represent the most important investments and innovation within the field of facade construction. According to Köppen’s climatic classification, Santiago has warm temperate climate with dry summer, like California, Northern Africa and the Persian Gulf. This means a short period of winter rains and a long dry season. The thermal oscillation reaches to 13 ºC between the warmest month (January) and coldest (July) and 14- 16 °C between daily maximum and minimum. Moreover the levels of radiation in the horizontal plane are between 1.380 and 1.666 kWh/m2 year, equivalent to the Chilean north desertic coastal zone. This paper explains the preliminary results of a work dedicated to made a review of how does the “class A” typology work in the sense of energy performance. METHODOLOGY This paper is part of a general research which main objective is to establish a baseline of post-occupancy energy consumption of “Class A” office buildings in Santiago. The methodology considers the continuous monitoring of several floors in four “Class A” office buildings for one year. The study cases analyzed were determined by an extensive study of the buildings in the city which have been used for more than two years, establishing their main characteristics in order to focus on representative examples of the typology. There are three types of data considered that allow an overall assessment of the performance of each one of the cases: Ambient parameters, energy consumption and comfort perception. The ambient parameters allow comparing the state of the exterior and interior space during occupied and unoccupied hours, in order to understand the conditions under which the building operates, while energy consumption readings and