The  Ventilation Laboratory is located in the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of Universidad de Valladolid. Its purposes are framed in the research and innovation activities for the control and management of the buildings’ air quality. It proposes the study of air behaviour used to achieve basic qualities on the indoor environment so as to give its occupant confront and hygiene. 

The analysis of ventilation capacity is intrinsic to the building’s energy efficiency. The rating of air change efficiency and its distribution helps improve the building’s overall energy balance. Among the laboratory’s own values is the essential goal of bringing together architectonical design and the aerodynamical concepts intervening in air renovation quality. 

The research lines walked upon in the laboratory consist in: evaluating air quality and ventilation efficiency inside occupied spaces; analize air change impact in outdoors which is supplied to indoor spaces; qualify the impact of infiltrations and leakages in the natural ventilation process; and study new design proposals, systems and equipment able to improve the buildings’ habitability conditions.               

The ventilation laboratory of the School of Architecture comes from the need to improve air comfort and health conditions inside occupied spaces and focuses its investigation four coplanar lines: indoor air quality; outside air renovation; ducts; ventilation due to uncontrolled infiltrations. These lines share a common objective that is to achieve the targets set for improving the conditions of habitability of the occupants. 

The research strategy involves analyzing how architectural form contributes to air quality and its distribution in livable spaces. For this purpose, the use of indicators to objectively measure and quantify the suitability of the characteristics and properties of air for occupants of the buildings use is required. 

Among the facilities of the ventilation laboratory, there is has an extensive catalog of equipment and means for evaluating the air dynamics and quality both on the inside and the outside of the buildings. The laboratory infrastructure integrates several technical means for the real analysis of air dynamics inside the livable spaces and vertical ducts. Others are able to simulate the air in wide outdoor spaces like urban environments. All the infrastructure isequipped with adequate instrumentation and the best CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) computer support for virtual modelling.