Earth, Wind, and Fire (EWF) is a natural ventilation system developed by Dr Ben Bronsema for office buildings in the Western European climate. Powered by nature: ground temperature & gravity for cooling, wind for energy generation & ventilation, and sun for the heat and natural draft, this system claims not only to use little energy but also naturally purifies while humidify/dehumidify the air. No study has been done to see the performance of the system in a warmer climate, such as Tokyo. This thesis intends to answer that question.The dynamic duo of EWF: air supply system called Climate Cascade (CC) and air exhaust system called Solar Chimney (SC) are sized and calculated using 2 separate Excel models, from which the key parameters are identified, and design choices can be made. It was clear that as Tokyo’s temperature is warmer than Amsterdam’s, the focus needs to be given to cooling rather than heating. The challenge: space is limited in Tokyo hence the proposal of making SC a plug & play unitized system.Armed with a case study integrating EWF into a relatively new 10-story medium-sized office building in Tokyo, the study explored and compared 4 different systems: the existing energy-conscious VRF system, conventional VAV system, EWF with a chilled ceiling, and EWF through chilled beams.In conclusion, EWF can contribute to energy reduction (40%) without compromising thermal comfort in comparison to the conventional VAV. Regarding VRF, further research needs to be done to properly simulate EWF with HR in the dynamic simulation software used. Moreover, EWF contributed to ventilation energy reduction in all cases evaluated, as well as improving thermal comfort.

In the Netherlands, the residential buildings consume the highest percentage of primary energy among the various building sectors. With around 80% of the Dutch housing built before 1995 a huge portion of the energy share is tapped in the old housing stock. While new housing constructions had to be nearly energy neutral as of 2020, a large portion of the existing housing stock has a higher relative energy consumption. The old housing stock thus needs urgent energy-retrofitting that is instrumental in reaching the goals targeted by the Dutch government by 2050. The Earth, Wind & Fire (EWF) system developed by Dr. Ben Bronsema (2013) during his PhD research can play an effective role in this aspect. Therefore, the research focussed on investigating the applicability of the Earth, Wind & Fire system for the Housing buildings in terms of energy-efficiency and thermal comfort potential. A case study building is selected to carry out the said investigation. Several design strategies were incorporated for the case study building to design the EWF system with highest technical performance. The study also incorporated dynamic simulations to evaluate the energy performance of the building after installing the EWF system. The study concluded that the integration of the Earth, Wind & Fire system has a great potential to reduce the energy consumption of the apartment buildings and improve the indoor comfort of the building and thus is a highly effective energy-retrofitting system for the housing buildings. The efficiency of the EWF system in improving the performance of the apartment buildings is thus highlighted. The effectives of the EWF system in reducing the energy consumption is dependent on the existing façade of the apartments and thus it is essential to refurbish the poor-performing façade to maximize the benefit. Thus, the study also concluded that apart from the installation of the EWF system several more improvements are needed in the existing buildings to achieve the goal of a nearly energy-neutral design.