Alammar, Ammar, Alyman, Abdulrahman Ahmed, Alsofiani, Mohammed, Murugesan, Libish and Latif, Eshrar  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3982-6929
2026.
Towards climate-resilient office façades: integrating PCM-enhanced glazing with dynamic external louvres under current and future hot-arid climates.
Sustainability
18
(19)
, 10168.
10.3390/su181910168
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Abstract
Phase-change material (PCM) glazing and dynamic external shading are promoted as sustainable cooling measures, yet they act on the same solar load and are rarely assessed together under a mandatory energy code. This study aims to evaluate and compare the individual and combined performance of PCM glazing and adaptive external louvres in reducing cooling demand in a code-compliant office building under present and future hot–arid climates. The reference case is an SBC 601-compliant west-facing Riyadh office under present and 2080 weather. EnergyPlus was coupled with a calibrated one-dimensional enthalpy PCM model using a one-way coupling framework. The approach was verified against a fully bidirectional co-simulation (0.5–1.8%). Adaptive louvres cut annual cooling by 10.2% (71% of the west-glazing share). A matched no-latent control attributes only 0.5 of the 9.4 points saved by PCM glazing to latent storage: the code glazing optically starves the PCM. Their combination is sub-additive by 6.6 percentage points across 21 sensitivity variants. Melt and placement sweeps favour a 35 °C melt point and the outer pane. On thermal grounds, adaptive external louvres should be prioritised for code-compliant hot–arid buildings, while PCM glazing is most beneficial where higher solar gains allow latent heat utilisation, informing sustainable façade codes.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Published Online |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Architecture |
| Subjects: | N Fine Arts > NA Architecture T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) |
| Publisher: | MDPI |
| ISSN: | 2071-1050 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 30 September 2026 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 30 September 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Oct 2026 11:17 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/189898 |
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