Abstract
Traditional skywell dwellings embody climate-responsive passive design but may remain hot and humid under low-wind summer conditions, requiring passive-ventilation retrofits while preserving their spatial organization. Skywell performance and component-level solar chimneys are comparatively well studied, but their direct integration in traditional multi-room dwellings remains at an early stage. This study develops a climate-adaptive retrofit design approach that integrates a solar chimney with the existing skywell of a traditional rammed-earth dwelling in Songyang, China. Field monitoring showed that mean relative humidity exceeded 90% at all five indoor locations. An EnergyPlus Airflow Network model was calibrated against hourly temperatures from four rooms, yielding RMSE values of 0.33–0.91 °C, with 84.8% of predictions within ±1 °C. The calibrated model was used to compare the baseline and retrofit configurations during a selected 72 h hot period and across the full summer, while the 2000-configuration parametric study retained the 72 h window. During the selected period, the retrofit lowered the simulated operative temperature in all 432 paired hourly comparisons, with a mean reduction of 1.73 °C. Across the full summer, it produced lower operative temperature in 94.7% of 13,248 paired hourly comparisons, with a comparable mean reduction of 1.67 °C, and increased the percentage of hours within the adaptive comfort band from 33.9% to 52.0%. The first-floor hall showed the largest cooling benefit, whereas the second-floor rooms were more responsive to changes in vertical chimney geometry. Overall chimney height and outlet opening height jointly accounted for 85.19–95.09% of random forest feature importance. The collector glazing parameters were more influential in the skywell–chimney zone. These findings support a design hierarchy that prioritizes airflow continuity and vertical exhaust geometry before collector glazing, providing a quantitative basis for solar chimney retrofits that preserve spatial organization of traditional skywell dwellings.
Abstract by the authors, reproduced under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Original publication via the link below.