When wood-based thermal mass performs as well as concrete

• Coupling of internal thermal mass with buoyancy ventilation, experimental validation • Wood and concrete thermal mass designs compared, both achieve optimal and equivalent performance • Both test buildings reach the same targets for temperature damping (0.7) and ventilation rate (20 L/s) • Surface area of wood thermal mass increased by × 1.42 to compensate for inferior thermal properties • Temperature damping drives reliable airflow in night updraft (28.1 ± 0.4 L/s) and day downdraft (16 ± 0.4