The task of understanding the state of natural ventilation around the world is a formidable task in itself. Simply understanding the environmental culture in every single country could be very revealing and relevant to work in this field. Unfortunately, such a commitment is not very feasible. Thus, in searching for relevant references, at the very least, a research focus must be proposed.
From the surface, applying natural ventilation to buildings located places other than the west coast, will be a significant challenge because of the relatively hot and humid nights that exist during the summer. Night ventilation using fairly dry and cool air appears essential to the efficacy of natural ventilation.
What appears crucial then is to evaluate how well natural ventilation can work with more unfavorable humidity levels and nighttime temperatures. Some motivation for this direction of research can be found in various articles and texts studying passive cooling technologies in hot-humid regions in the Middle East, as well as vernacular architecture. There appears to be a lot to learn from what was done a long time before air-conditioning even existed. The need for thermal comfort has always been crucial to mankind's survival. A look back to what previous cultures used to keep from overheating could possibly give us an idea of where we should be headed.
Ideally, it would be great to do performance monitoring on a recently constructed naturally ventilated building that was designed with the latest computational fluid dynamics modeling tools, as well as with all the knowledge gained by architects, engineers, and scientists over the last century. This, to some degree, has been done in various locations around the country, particularly in California. Unfortunately, the climate on the west coast is not very representative of the climate throughout the majority of the United States. What is needed is a building located in a region of the United States where the climate is not so "friendly." Research has shown that there are no recently constructed naturally ventilated buildings in the Boston area, although an assortment of buildings can be found elsewhere on the east coast.
Post-occupancy monitoring of a newer building, or of an older, more traditional naturally ventilated building could provide significant insights into what design considerations should be made to adapt natural ventilation for a hot and humid climate.