Zone 3 - transient and buffer spaces¶
Corridors, washrooms and other spaces people pass through, which may run hotter than zones 1 and 2 and can shade them.
Zone 3
Performance requirements
A space, that is naturally ventilated, using adaptive-comfort cooling measures as zone 2 areas, but due to the transitory functions of these space (corridors, washrooms, storage rooms, showers etc) they are able to accommodate higher temperatures than the ARC temperature limits for zones 1 and 2. Cooling comes mainly from effective cross-ventilation, or heat shedding via openings in ceilings, which creates air movement, with electric ceiling or wall fans used when extra cooling is needed. These rooms will tend to be positioned adjacent to the areas of the building most exposed to sun, where shading can be difficult or costly to achieve – east and west elevations are good examples of this, where low angle sun makes shading of walls difficult. These ‘buffer’ spaces can be used to shade other rooms.
Below: a notional building with only zones 2 & 3 incorporated:
Below: the same notional building, with zones 1, 2 & 3 incorporated:
Below: a design for a school in Tanzania, showing the use of zone 3 ‘buffer spaces’ on the east and west elevations to help shade zone 1 and 2 rooms,
(redo: plan to ppt, with same zone colours)
Open questions on this page
These are unresolved in the source document - the author's own queries, and the figures and citations still to be filled in. They are repeated here rather than resolved, because a threshold shown as settled when it is still under discussion would be misleading.
- (redo: plan to ppt, with same zone colours)
Confirm any of these with ARC before relying on them for a project.
Source: ARC Technical Criteria - 151
Pattern · confidence medium · Imported 2026-09-12, not yet reviewed · next review 2026-12-12
Tags: untagged
Citation key: zone-3-transient-spaces