Natural Ventilation

in Traditional Courtyard Houses

in The Central Region of

Saudi Arabia

Introuduction


Up

 

 

The fast growing building industry in Saudi Arabia has been accompanied by a great increase in energy consumption in each of the five regions of the country. This has meant new power stations and greater fuel consumption. The greater the energy consumed, the greater the amount of fuel burned thus the greater the air pollution in the country.

Modernisation and development have polluted the environment and consumed the only natural resource the country has. Whatever form development takes, it will use energy to operate and produce its products, and it will produce waste. The continuous increase in the consumption of energy is not only consuming an unsustainable amount of fusel fuel but it also delivers huge amounts of air pollution, which is linked to the greenhouse effect and to ozone depletion (2). Saudi Arabia has a hot climate in the summer and the new built environment has not taken this into consideration during the design of buildings. This means that to provide a comfortable indoor environment buildings must consume a large amount of energy to deal with the often excessive cooling loads that arise from the deficiencies of the design.

Before the discovery of oil, the country's climate was the same as it is now, so the question arises, to what extent were traditional houses and other buildings able to maintain comfort? The use of natural means of ventilation in traditional houses was very effective in providing a thermally comfortable space which was warm in winter and cool in summer. In the central region, traditional houses were ventilated using two architectural elements, the courtyard and the triangular openings. In addition the houses were built of thick mud walls providing thermal insulation and stability.

These days energy efficient housing is essential for all who care about energy consumption and indoor air quality. An efficient house will use less energy to cool in summer and to heat in winter. Many factors contribute to an efficient house, one of which is the use of natural ventilation whenever possible. Natural ventilation, along with good thermal insulation and control of solar heat gains, can reduce energy consumption for cooling. If traditional houses in the hot Central region of Saudi Arabia had employed such natural ventilation methods in the past, why not use it in modern houses as a step towards energy efficiency and better indoor air quality? This thesis therefore is concerned with investigating natural ventilation in housing in Saudi Arabia with particular focus on studying the triangular openings in traditional courtyard houses in the Central region.

This chapter will provide an outline of the structure of the thesis. It will introduce the principal problem to be debated, the aim and objectives, the methodology, and the limitations and scope of the study.