Assessment of the Environmental Condition of Fully Enclosed Courtyard in Hot Humid Tropics

Abstract

The solution to the issue of climate change focused on finding effective passive strategies to bring down the energy demands of buildings. The outcome of this step that the designers became more aware of traditional strategies that depend on non-mechanical methods, in order to improve the comfortable atmosphere. For an example in hot-dry and hot-humid zones cooling is a priority than heating, for this demand many elements support natural techniques applied in these buildings for many decades, such as courtyards, mashrabiyya, wind towers and ventilation tunnel. This study, therefore, assessed the courtyard environmental conditions through field measurement in order to establish the fact that the courtyard is an element to support natural technique. From the field measurement result, the courtyard environment was able to reduce the air temperature by 2.25°C and relative humidity by 1.2% compared with the outdoor environment. The study shows that the courtyard improves the environmental condition of the building, and therefore, there is a need for further study on the effect of vegetation on the thermal performance of the courtyard for midrise building in Tropical climate of Malaysia.