Recent trends in architecture and innovative marketing often based upon European and North American themes, are presenting engineers in Australia with many challenging problems when designing building systems for large downtown and suburban shopping centers.

The introduction of large glazed roof areas, atriums, barrel vaults and skylights in particular, require special attention to solar control by passive means, as the climatic conditions and considerations in most Australian cities are the reverse of those observed in colder climates.

Marketing trends introducing leisure and promotional areas into large complexes, together with highly populated food eating areas have added new dimensions to the environmental, ventilation, thermodynamic, safety and exhaust aspects now facing system designers.

This paper introduces the fundamental problems confronting system designers and present methods of approach to both passive and systems design, allowing flexibility for unknown and diverse types of tenancies and possible future changes to avoid early obsolence, all within commercial viability when taking energy, maintenance and capital costs into consideration.

Units: SI