Workshop:
Architecture-Tradition
and Modernization
Climate Responsive Urban Design
Trends of none sustainable planning
• Planners of the twentieth Century seem to have assumed
that urban settlements were supposed to be unsustainable.
• The results were cities that consume natural resources and
produce waste and pollution with lack of green spaces and
inefficient transport systems.
• The world reserves of fossil fuels are being depleted .
• pollution is causing irrecoverable damage to nature.
Towards sustainable planning
It became necessary create trend towards sustainable
settlements which are to be:
• Echo system focusing on harmony between buildings and
the surrounding environment of Mother Nature.
• Conservation of both natural and built environment .
• Giving priority to the adaptation and re-use of recycled
building materials and components.
• Minimizing the consumption of energy used in buildings and
for travel between essential activities of the city .
• Giving priority to the adaptation and re-use of recycled
building materials and components.
Why Energy-Efficient solutions
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Air-conditioned building in a Hot- climate regions consumes
70-80% energy.
More energy is needed to cool than to heat.
Within a few decades 60-70% of the total world population will
live in urban areas.
Energy prices will be increased .
Alternative energy sources (e.g. solar power) should be
introduced.
Naturally occurring resources should be integrated into
planning and to promote energy savings.
Passive and Active thermal design
Passive climatic design
Design solutions that exploit passive measures
(e.g. building envelope design, climatic conditions
and natural energy sources) to achieve the desired
indoor and outdoor comfort conditions.
Active climatic design
Internal comfort is achieved primarily through
mechanical measures.
Combined Passive and Active
Combination of passive design of building
supported by limited mechanical equipments.
Modern movement-Active thermal design
• In the past, buildings were constructed using
passive measures
• Active design came with modern movement as
means of satisfying comfort concerns in buildings.
• Thus modern architecture lost its connection to
'place'.
• Built environments are now totally controlled and
divorced from their surroundings.
• Energy in getting depleted and it is becoming very
expensive to maintain the modern totally
controlled built environments.
Thinking passively
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• Passive measures rely on utilizing the elements
inherent in a region's climate and its natural
energy sources.
• To use passive measures is to accept the
dynamics of nature.
• New habits must be introduced: This involves a
dialogue with nature and reacting to the
changes that occur with the seasons of the year
and the time of day
Thinking passively
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• It requires an integrated approach .
• It involves all disciplines - urban planning,
architecture, engineering, construction, etc.
• At all levels of the design process and through all
details of a building.
• It includes operation and management of the
buildings and the development of adaptation.
A sense of place:
Working in Context
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• The climate and landscape inherent to a region has
through time served as the foundation for the
design of the urban and built environment.
• To design according to the characteristics present
in nature leads to an architectural vocabulary that
is shaped by rational, reasoned and proven
solutions.
• It also produces a language that is accessible to all,
and its inherent attractiveness is 'natural' owing to
a harmony with its environment.
A sense of place:
Working in Context
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• Traditional intimate city of the Middle East was
replaced with wide streets, laid out in grids with
rows of individual houses on individual plots of land
• Have often been based on imported Northern
European models.
• They make no reference to their context and they
use inappropriate building forms, materials and
openings.
• They fail to provide protection from the
fundamental cause of discomfort such as solar
radiation.
Preconditions for Successful passive
Design
• Introducing sustainable design ideas is not possible without full
support from all parties involved.
• This involves the education of authorities, clients and designers,
and a change in attitude towards energy conservation .
• Authorities should adopt urban planning principles and energyefficient design criteria.
• Codes in developing countries should be based on the local
conditions each specific country and not on foreign standards.
• Clients and developers can be motivated by government
initiatives with regulations and codes concerning energy
consumption.
New approach in Passive design
•
In active design the architect generally designs a building, and the
engineer will afterwards try to adapt the building to its surrounding
climatic conditions using mechanical air conditioning with little concern
for energy consumption.
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In passive design close and intensive cooperation between architects and
engineers.
Passive design requires thermal evaluations of an architect's designs
throughout the design process.
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Protection from climatic extremes through ecological planning and
optimization of energy wind sheltering, natural cooling, ground water
management, and vegetative buffer zones.
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Passive should influence the modern architecture form just like it did
with traditional architecture.
The Problem
Most modern settlements in Oman are made up of detached
dispersed building blocks with wide grid streets with
intensive transportation resulting in:
• High heat stress on summer days due to high solar radiation
and ambient air temperature.
• High glare from direct and reflected sun light.
• Prevalence of dusty street winds.
• High cost of energy for the attainment of thermal comfort
in buildings that did not interact with the requirements of
the climatic environments.
• Problems of air, water, and noise pollution.
Climatic regions in Oman:
• Hot dry desert ( north west)
• Maritime desert ( Coastal)
• Upland desert (mountains)
The Climate of Muscat ( as an example)
• The Sultanate of Oman is situated
between latitudes 16˚ and 26 N˚, and
between longitudes 20˚ and 60˚ E.
• Muscat lies at the Tropic of Cancer at
latitude 23.5 N, and longitude 58 E in
an enclave of flat narrow coastal strip
surrounded by high mountains and
open to the sea.
• The large mountainous arid land mass
creates a Maritime desert climate as
shown below.
HOT MARITIME DESERT CLIMATE
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• Air temperature: Hot season: mean max:34-40 c
mean min :24-30 c
Cool season: mean max: 20-25 c
mean min : 10-18 c
Diurnal range: 10-20 c
• Relative humidity: 50% - 90% Great evaporation
from the sea
•
Vapor however remains suspended in the air causing very
uncomfortable conditions.
HOT MARITIME DESERT CLIMATE
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Precipitation:
• Slight and variable throughout the year 15-155 mm/
annum
Sky Conditions:
• Normally clear dark blue and sometimes hazy due to the
suspended water particles in the air
Solar Radiation:
• Mostly direct and strong, but with strong diffuse due to
hazy sky.
• Strong reflected component from ground and buildings
causing glare.
• Long wave re-radiation from all heated surfaces is not as
rapid as pure Hot-Arid regions causing temperature diurnal
range being not very high.
Lessons from the vernacular
architecture in Oman
• There is much to be learned from traditional Omani
architecture in it interrelation with climatic environment.
• They have thousands of years of research of trial and
error into the relationship between building and climate
and represent models for the development of a climate
responsive architecture.
• They created a regional architecture of the place, with the
form and character generated out of the culture, climate
and the region.
• These traditional models can be examined as precedents,
which inform the architecture, rather than to provide a set
of ready-made solutions.
The urban space in hot-climate regions
• In contrast with cold climate settlement the urban space is
a key factor in defining the characteristics of hot climate
settlement .
• It is a lively, dynamic, and possibly the most important
idiom in urban design.
• Buildings are huddled close and shade each other and
creating a shaded urban space.
Local wind patterns
• Prevailing wind patterns should be studied but obviously
site microclimate has its own characteristics due to the
effect of topography and building patterns.
•
Mutrah city sector in Muscat is an example of the effect of
the direction of sea breeze on urban pattern.
•
Wind scoops are inherent idioms in Gulf vernacular
architecture.
Shading of Urban Space
• Shading from solar radiation is of prime importance in the
design of buildings and the urban space in hot climate
regions.
• Research work was conducted at SQU on the optimization
of proportions of urban space for maximum shading
requirements.
• Results showed the optimum proportions of 1:1:4.
• Relative priorities of orientation are N, NE, SE, S, NE, NW,
SW, and W.
solar Chart for Muscat Location
Shading of urban space in Muscat for proportion 1:1:1/
Heliodon model test
Shading of urban space in Muscat for
proportion 1:1:3/ Heliodon model test
Ground Cover and Vegetation
• Air temperature close to the ground presents the most
extreme the conditions.
• During the day is the highest and at night it is the lowest.
• Plant and grass cover decrease surface temperatures, while
pavements and asphalt increase it
• Vegetation and trees influences solar radiation gains,
humidity levels, and wind speeds and directions.
• Positioning of trees has direct effect on controlling wind
movement and direction.
Urban space in the modern architecture in
Oman
Status of present research
Present research is directed towards:
• Assessment of climatic environment forces influencing
urbanization patterns and strategies for sustainable
development in Oman.
• Detailed study of Climatic factors: Wind patterns and
ventilation, solar exposure and shading, Air temperature
and humidity, problems of local dusty winds.
• Drawing lessons from traditional urban and rural
settlements.
• Assessment of the present urban pattern in terms of their
interaction with climatic environment at the level of the
city sector, neighborhood, and the individual building unit.
• Studying the impact of present building regulations of
street sizes, set backs on ability to attain proper shading
of urban space.
• Presenting adjustment of building regulations in a way that
considers new design constrains in response to the
requirements of the climatic environment.
• Establishing locally adapted terms of protection from
climatic extremes through ecological planning.
• Recommending action plans for the reduction of energy and
water consumption.
• considering interventions to make changes toward
sustainable design, sustainable development, and
sustainable living habits.
Thank you