Influence of a reflective glass facade on surrounding microclimate and building cooling load: Case of an office building in Algiers

The urban landscape of the city of Algiers, Algeria, has seen a spread of reflective glass facades of new and rehabilitated office buildings. This type of glass can create visual glare in outdoor spaces and may lead to indoor thermal discomfort. The objective of this paper is to investigate experimentally and numerically the impact of the reflective glass facade of an existing building on the neighboring microclimate and the building cooling load. The modeling of the microclimate around the case study building is performed with ENVI-met software. The impact of the microclimate is investigated by calculating the cooling load of the case study building with three weather data files. The cooling load is calculated with the building energy simulation software Ecotect for a typical summer day. The weather data files investigated are the experimental data from the reference station of Algiers airport, experimental data measured on the case study building roof, and the data modeled by ENVI-met taking into account the microclimate created by the glazed building. It is found that the air temperature surrounding the building significantly increases due to the multiple reflections of the radiation heat flux, leading to an increase in the cooling demand.