NORMA is a simplified computer-based design tool which enables the designer to examine how altering different aspects of the design, can influence the natural cooling characteristics of a building.
NORMA considers various types of passive and natural cooling as follows:
It initially calculates the energy required to cool a building to acceptable comfort conditions using conventional air-conditioning, without any assistance from natural cooling.It then calculates the energy which would be required to supplement the cooling provided by each of the techniques above, in order that the internal environment be within comfort conditions. It also calculates the number of hours of overheating in a day.
A direct comparison can then be made and the percentage energy conservation using natural cooling can be determined.
For simplicity, NORMA considers a representative day of the summer, the 21st July,as the mean hot day in the overheating season. It also simplifies the building and
considers it as a single volume. It does not take into account the different use
of spaces.
