Climate Responsive Housing design for hot and...

Climate Responsive Housing design for hot and semi-arid Climate of Dire Dawa Town by using Givoni Bioclimatic Chart, Mahoney Table and Autodesk Ecotec analysis

Author Name : Atlabachew Alagaw, Nebyou Yonas

ABSTRACT

Climate responsive architecture is the outcome of climate consideration in architectural design, construction techniques, and material use. This increases comfort hours and reduces energy consumption in buildings. In contrast, housing construction in Ethiopia gives less concern for the climatic considerations and it results in higher energy consumption and lower comfort in buildings. This paper aims to investigate the passive design strategies for hot and semi–arid climate zone in Ethiopia. Dire-Dawa was taken as one city and condominium was taken as a base case building. Givoni-Bioclimatic chart and Mahoney table were used to formulate preliminary design strategies based on the given climate conditions. The resulting design recommendations include opening size, natural ventilation provisions, shading and passive cooling. To evaluate the efficiencies of these generated preliminary design strategies, comparative energy simulation was further performed by Autodesk Ecotect. The simulation covers, thermal mass with four different wall thicknesses and Orientation of the building with twenty-two different angles. The results from simulation almost match with bioclimatic recommendations.

Keywords: Thermal comfort, Design strategy, Energy simulation, Climatic design, Climate