Reducing Cooling Loads in Hot-Humid Climates: A Best Practice Research Building in China

In this chapter we discuss a project that epitomises the research required to find sustainable solutions and create comfortable environments at the micro scale of individual buildings, the IBR centre in Shenzhen, China, which was a research project in itself and continues to be a focus of ongoing research, experimentation and monitoring. The knowledge base ranges from the sciences of climatology, human comfort and behaviour to those of building physics, energy systems and advanced engineering; the challenge lies in integrating these diverse fields. Whether at micro, meso or macro level, the common cause is the application of advanced design and science to solutions in practice of our overarching challenge: warming environments, both at the local level of cities and that of the planet.