Mechanical and Natural Ventilation

Ensuring livability, safety and efficiency through effective management of circulated air

Well-designed ventilation performs many (largely invisible) functions. It provides comfort through heating and cooling. It delivers clean, odor-free air through filtration and air exchange with the outdoors. In some cases, it controls contaminant levels (e.g., industrial ventilation and emergency smoke control systems). In specialized spaces, such as operating rooms and laboratories, a ventilation system may control many aspects of the indoor environment to ensure the occupants’ safety.

For a building to perform well, the ventilation system must offer maximum comfort, safety and air quality while minimizing energy costs.

ventilation fan

Our service

We help you design effective and efficient ventilation that will create value for all occupants and owners of your building.

We have the in-house experience, expertise, computational resources and process to handle a wide range of problems in ventilation design, from routine to complex. We also specialize in the particular challenges of passive ventilation. We’ll offer early advice and concepts based on experience and back them up with further studies if needed, especially for particularly complex or critical systems. These studies might include proof-of-concept analytical modeling or even computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling coupled with wind-tunnel testing. When a big-picture look is needed, we call on the full range of RWDI’s services, including energy, meteorology or microclimate analyses.

But whatever the project, big or small, simple or complex, we start fresh. We aren’t wedded to particular analysis tools or design approaches: We are independent and can challenge the status quo. Our only objective is to produce an unbiased design that’s in the best interests of your project.

Typical Applications

  • General office contexts
  • Industrial contexts
  • Natural ventilation
  • Public realm (between buildings)
  • Smoke control 
  • Specialized environments (e.g., operating rooms, labs)