Rezvaneh koosha - Department of architecture, Payame Noor University (PNU), P.O. Box,

The atrium is now found in many building types including offices, hotels, hospitals, and shopping malls all over the world. Atrium is a term that referres to courtyard or in the architecture of aborigine ancient Rome and the space and the courtyard entrance way in the churches of early period of Christianity. Today, Atrium means a vacant and an enclosed space which is created vertically to a height of several floors. An atrium provides an environmentally controlled space, naturally lit, and keeps out rain, snow and wind, thus offering several urban design functional and social amenities. By correct design of atria, the building can be capable of capturing solar energy to reduce the building’s energy consumption in addition to creating a comfortable and visually pleasant environment.According to the aims of sustainable architecture ,not only the atrium can be designed in order to have low energy loss ,but also play a new role in reducing energy consumption in the form of natural heating and cooling and solar passive perfoemance.Designing without taking into consideration proper design of building can lead to considerable increase in heat gains and energy usage. These research focuses on shape, stack effect, ventilation and daylight in atrium building via literature review in order to provide valuable feedback to help architects and designers to identify the most energy efficient atrium building type

Atrium, sustainable architecture, courtyard, waste of energy