CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The systematic use of the Bow-Window and Bay-Window is associated with the Victorian architectural style. It emerged in the mid-19th century, during the reign of Victoria I of England (between 1897 and 1901). This type of window had a strong promotion and dissemination mainly in the United Kingdom, its colonies and the United States. Multi-azimuthal Windows are defined as architectural elements inspired in the commonly called Bow-Window or Bay-Window. Multi-azimuthal windows present the particularity of been projected from the façade limit, and of having more than one glass oriented towards a different azimuth, hence its name. Typically, these windows contain a central window, parallel to the façade and lateral windows that may have different amplitude angles (the angles formed between the side windows with the façade). Another characteristic feature is the linear projection that is the distance from the font plane of the façade to the edge of the central window. These windows are a device for energy exchange (to gain solar energy and natural lighting) that is higher than the flat window with the same surface of vain. It is defined a figure called ?Energy Gain Factor Multi-azimuthal / Flat? (EGFM/F), the solar energy transmitted through the multi-azimuthal window respect to the solar energy transmitted by the flat one, with the same size of vain. In this paper, results from 44 cases in Bombal neighborhood of the city of Mendoza, Argentina, are shown. The most common multi-azimuthal window found in this study has an angular amplitude of 45º and a linear projection of 0.3 m. The FGEMP in this case reaches the value of 1.20 as daily average that means, the solar gain is 20% more on daily average. Moreover, if hours away from solar noon are analyzed, the value increases to 1.28. In this paper it is considered the solar energy gained when a flat window is replaced by a multi-azimuthal window. Also, a discussion of solar gain for angular amplitudes of lateral windows of 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° is presented. Moreover, the possibilities of use it in new and existent bioclimatic buildings, are also taken into consideration.