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Thermal comfort and building design strategies for low energy houses in Libya
... There are three forms of traditional housing, which are dispersed in three parts of the state, which included (Earth sheltered dwellings in Gharyan) (desert compacted dwellings in Ghadames), and (patio dwellings in Tripoli) (Gabril 2014). In this study, the traditional dwellings in both regions, Gharyan and Ghadames (underground houses) and (compacted dwellings) respectively, will be addressed including local building materials and traditional construction methods of construction to benefit from its sustainable architecture. ...
... During winter, the air's average moisture content is 61%, with a high relative humidity (RH) reading that can reach 80%. (Gabril 2014). ...
... "In 1986, UNESCO designated the ancient town of Ghadames as a World Heritage place" . (Gabril 2014). ...
The traditional underground dwellings in the mountainous region of Gharyan and the traditional compact dwellings in the desert region of Ghadames, Libya are distinguished with unique construction techniques and architectural features that reflect the local building traditions and environmental considerations. These vernacular dwellings were built employing domestically available materials and simple construction methods, displaying the wealth of conventional knowledge and vernacular construction approaches. Local inhabitants ingeniously designed these dwellings to protect themselves from the rigors of harsh climatic conditions without having pre-training about architectural design. This study aims to amass comprehensive data on building materials and construction techniques utilized in the traditional dwellings of Gharyan and Ghadames in particular. The data can help in understanding the strategy of solutions utilized, preserving these traditional dwellings, and learning from these construction techniques for future buildings. Quantitative research methods were used in the study, starting with an overview of related literature review, and then gathering information through a field survey. The results of the study showed that the building materials and construction techniques used and applied in the two cases, Gharyan and Ghadames, can be said to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, due to its reliance on the local resources and materials available in both regions. Moreover, these traditional practices can be developed to meet contemporary needs and reduce the damage caused to nature by using manufactured building materials.
... ess, availability of construction materials, and self-sustainability, promoting mud-made housing technology in urban areas.Yildiz & Manioğlu (2015),Mottaki & Amini (2013) andFernandes et al (2015) provide insights into the energy consumption and efficiency of housing units, use of local materials, and resource efficiency in vernacular architecture.Gabril (2014) emphasizes resource management and conservation of energy in the context of metabolic activity rates, contributing to economic sustainability. Shastry, Mani & Tenorio (2016) discuss natural ventilation and cooling strategies, indirectly touching on economic sustainability by evaluating energy performance and efficiency in different buil ...
... hallenges in Samanbahçe Housing, proposing measures for sustainable development and emphasizing residents' perceptions for achieving social sustainability.Mottaki & Amini (2013) stress cultural solutions in vernacular architecture, promoting social cohesion, identity, and a harmonious relationship with nature, contributing to social sustainability.Gabril (2014) explores various aspects of social sustainability, including family structure, social interaction, and the impact of design on space use in remodelled vernacular houses. Shastry, Mani & Tenorio (2016) discuss family and community interaction, recognizing the importance of social dynamics in vernacular housing design for urban livability ...
... Simulations show that vernacular houses can achieve improved thermal comfort through thoughtful consideration of solar gain, air temperature, and wind velocity distribution in different spaces. Performance of Traditional Houses in Libya(Gabril, 2014):Gabril (2014) examines the thermal performance of traditional vernacular houses in Libya and proposes low-energy design strategies. The research 28nalyses socio-cultural influences on vernacular house design, suggesting guidelines for low-energy contemporary buildings. ...
Conventional construction methods pose a significant threat to our overall sustainability. This has prompted a re-evaluation of the time-tested, sustainable techniques found in vernacular and indigenous building practices around the world. Sustainable housing, according to our criteria, embodies a holistic sustainability approach that encompasses four key facets: environmental, economic, social, and cultural, often referred to as the four pillars of sustainability. Acknowledging the inherent link between sustainability and livability, this study is premised on the idea of assimilating comprehensive sustainability practices from indigenous and vernacular traditions worldwide. Methodology: The objective of this evidence-based scoping review is to examine the impact of indigenous and vernacular architectures on urban livability through gaining inspiration from their total sustainability. A comprehensive search strategy aligned with the PRISMA statement was devised. Primary concepts and synonyms were identified for inclusivity. Boolean operators were used to combine keywords effectively. Subject headings were considered for relevant databases. Filters and limits were applied as necessary. Grey literature and manual searches were conducted for comprehensiveness. Inclusion criteria included peer-reviewed publications, conference proceedings, government reports, theses, and dissertations from January 2000 to present. The focus was on English language publications addressing sustainability features in vernacular and indigenous housing globally. Aspects like energy efficiency, local material utilization, cultural significance, adaptability, and resilience were considered. Grey literature, non-English publications, studies before January 2000, and region-specific studies were excluded. In data extraction and analysis duplicates were removed, initial screening by researchers DSF and SA was conducted based on titles and abstracts, MA organized data in MS Excel sheets, full-text manuscripts were obtained and evaluated for eligibility, extracted data was catalogued in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The search based on the inclusion criteria yielded a total of 523 articles of which 26 were retained for final analysis and reviewing. The collection of selected studies, specifically examining their alignment with the principles of total sustainability, serves as a comprehensive exploration of diverse practices and ideas. In addition, the review discerns key technical and practical details related to the intricacies of contemporary urban life. Results: The indigenous methods identified demonstrated common sustainability traits, including adaptability to local climates, thermal comfort optimization, meticulous building orientation and design, use of indigenous materials and techniques, preservation of cultural identity, respect for vernacular heritage, promotion of social self-sufficiency, enhancement of visual connectivity, and the fostering of family and community gatherings. These practices epitomize key aspects of sustainability, such as recyclability, reusability, and renewability. The review identified key technical and practical details related to the intricacies of contemporary urban living, emphasizing the importance of understanding local context. The study explores the multifaceted nature of social sustainability in the context of indigenous and traditional architectures, providing valuable insights for promoting cohesive, culturally rich, and socially sustainable urban environments. Specifically, the study proposes a resilience framework and participatory approach for designing sustainable and resilient post-disaster housing solutions, highlighting the interlinkages between Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to health and water. Review further examined the four aspects of total sustainability and highlighted the importance of natural ventilation, solar shading, and passive methods for climate control, recycling, energy efficiency, and use of locally available materials, contributing to a healthy urban environment. Additionally, studies have highlighted the importance of indigenous materials in building envelopes for thermal comfort and affordable housing, emphasizing local resources, for energy efficiency in urban settings. While highlighting its potential contribution to sustainable urban life, the review emphasizes the importance of climate-conscious designs, community engagement, and resource-efficient building methods. Vernacular Housing in Vietnam, Indigenous African Building Techniques, Passive Control Methods of Kerala Traditional Architecture, Traditional Buildings in Haiti, Vernacular Buildings in Portugal, Integration with Nature in Tribal Habitats, Sustainability and Cultural Growth in Madeira Island, Learning from Traditional Construction in Spain, and Sustainable Housing Design in Mardin, Turkey all emphasize the importance of climate-conscious designs, community engagement, and resource-efficient building methods. Policy Projection: Incorporating evidence-based policy recommendations bolsters the legitimacy of sustainability concepts and theories by anchoring them in tested and documented methodologies and outcomes. Although our study's recommendations are both precise and effective, their applicability can vary with geographical contexts, particularly concerning environmental sustainability. For the other three dimensions, our recommendations shift their focus towards aspects of daily life, including neighborhood social capital, family relationships, citizenship, trust in interpersonal connections, social inclusion, well-being, habitability, and family and community dynamics. The study advocates for collaboration between architects and engineers to develop reconstruction strategies based on local methods and resources, showcasing the significance of indigenous knowledge in building resilience. Moreover, the study suggests that these strategies can be applied in contemporary urban design to create environmentally friendly and comfortable living spaces. This comprehensive model underscores a synergistic relationship between evidence and practice, with the overarching goal of enhancing ecological health and indoor air quality within the built environment.
... Such that via the knowledge and experience positively acquired through daily life, vernacular buildings built with local material provide thermal comfort throughout both summer and winter season. There are three types of traditional vernacular dwellings in Libya that are distributed in three regions of the country as underground housing (the mountain region), compact dwelling (the desert), and the courtyard house (coastal region) (Gabril, 2014). ...
... As such, they are very simple in design and inexpensive to build. They achieve less energy consumption compared to aboveground dwellings with the help of passive cooling and heating techniques (Gabril, 2014;Milanović et al., 2018). The underground houses also contributed largely to the green building construction. ...
... There are high-temperature variations between day and night in the summer, with average temperatures in summer reaching up to 40ºC. UNESCO declared in 1987 that the old city of Ghadames is a World Heritage site (Gabril, 2014). The dwelling of Ghadames is considered as one of the most important architectural components of the ancient city of Ghadames, with its unique and exquisite architecture and its white walls from the abundance of inscriptions and decoration that give the place aesthetic visual. ...
Modern buildings are associated with a lot of shortcomings, such as consumption of an excessive amount of non-renewable energy and resources, environmental pollution and depletion of natural landscapes, etc. Vernacular buildings can be argued to help in reducing environmental problems for local society. Libya, as a developing Arab country, has also faced several urbanization problems in recent years. However, the country has a remarkable span of vernacular architecture patterns. Vernacular architecture that the country owns may be a solution to combat such challenges. There are three types of traditional vernacular dwellings in three regions of the country as underground housing (the mountain region), compact dwelling (the desert), and the courtyard house (coastal region). Thus the aim of this study is to make a comparison between underground and modern housing in Gharyan, Libya, with regards to thermal performance and humidity. Thermal performance in both underground and above ground houses was measured with an instrument called a hygrometer. The result from the thermal measurement that was done in one month of the winter season (21/01/2019-18/02/2019) demonstrates that the underground house has an indoor mean temperature and humidity of 16.12°C and % 62.07 RH while the other house type has an indoor temperature and humidity of 12.70°C and % 70.13 RH. The underground house seems to have a relatively reasonable and stable indoor temperature compared to the modern house indoor. In addition, the underground house seems to be relatively less humid compared to the modern house for indoor environment in particular.
... However, "modern" construction is developing quickly these days, and the buildings' thermal quality is neglected. Since there aren't enough rules in place, the majority of modern structures lack thermal insulation and have extremely poor air tightness [6]. The electricity/energy sector in Libya, similar to other countries, energy is crucial to the countries for social and economic well-being. ...
... It underscores the significance of resident behaviour and building technology in determining energy usage patterns, advocating for a holistic method to energy efficiency in residential buildings. In another study by Ndiaye [6] a mixed-methods technique was used in the study, mixing qualitative interviews with quantitative questionnaires. The key objective of the thermal comfort study is to evaluate the thermal comfort of conventional homes in Libya. ...
An energy-efficient building maximises the utilisation of resources by providing comfortable living conditions to occupancy inside; while consuming the lowest amount of energy required. Building materials and electrical appliances used in a structure affect how power is consumed; hence, a building's characteristics are essential for further development. Notwithstanding, throughout the year, either in cold or hot weather, buildings are designed to provide comfort for their residents. Households in Libya turn on their air conditioning throughout the day to decrease the impact of the summertime weather, so the rise of temperature. That significantly demands more energy from the grid, and during peak energy demand might cause a deficiency in power generation. In residential houses, air conditioning units consume a large volume of Libya's electricity consumption, approximately 36% of the total electricity generated. Therefore, to obtain an overview of the amount of power required for cooling in Libyan homes; an investigation was created with an emphasis on air conditioning usage, followed by modelling of energy consumption. This work aims to minimise the amount of electricity required from a design perspective. It used surveys and modelling to determine the cooling requirements of different types of architectural buildings (ABs). Besides, the investigation indicated there is a substantial excessive waste of energy in the dwelling when using air conditioning units (ACUs). The analysis deduced consumption patterns of Libyan households are high in electricity, whereas approximately 40.6% of the respondents live in a one-floor house, which needs further consideration. At the same time, it addresses the challenges of electricity demand from the architectural viewpoint.
Graphical abstract
... In the context of the ongoing climate changes, the energy consumption has become a topic of utmost concern, especially that the inhabitants of big cities are trying to find more cost-effective ways and resources for economical indoor-heating (Gabril, 2014;Ionac et al., 2012) provided that the frequency and intensity of climatic extremes and hazards are increasing (Ionac et al., 2023;Ilea and Ionac, 2022). ...
... The main cause of this trend is most probably the general ongoing climate warming process, more evident in the evolution trend of minimum air-temperatures. (HDDn18, RADaw, Ta min and Wspaw) that were necessary for the calculation of the CEC index were selected and introduced in Table 2. Based on the above-mentioned pre-requisite data, then the CEC index could easily be calculated both for each winter month and for the entire cold season (Gabril N., 2014). Table 3 shows that the highest CEC value occurred on January (547.6 kWh/m 2 ), followed by December, with 528.7 kWh/m 2 and the lowest value occurred in February (491 kWh/m 2 ). ...
The energy consumption has become a real concern in choosing the most cost- effective way and resources for indoor-heating. This experimental study tried to estimate both the energy amounts needed to heat up the residential indoor spaces and the resulting average costs that people living in the Bucharest Metropolitan Area might have to pay for heating during the winter months. The daily minimum air-temperatures, incoming solar radiation and wind- speed values provided by the Bucharest-Băneasa weather station were used to calculate the corresponding mean monthly values of an expressive compound index for December, January and February, over the 1980-2015 period. In this respect, the Cooling Energy Consumption (CEC) index has been calculated. Then, its values were related to two different types of individual heating systems (CT): a conventional CT produced by Ariston (net efficiency of 93%) and a gaseous condensation CT produced by Viessmann (net efficiency of 108%). Finally, the results were multiplied by the actual unit cost of energy in Romania (1.3 lei/kWh), provided that the total monthly consumption of electricity per household keeps less than 300 kWh/month, so that some interesting and realistic estimates of heating expenditures could be obtained for either each or all winter months in Bucharest – Romania’s capital city. This method might be useful both to local authorities and inhabitants to estimate and plan in advance their public or domestic budget to more economically sustain their energy resources and expenditures.
... Traditional residential architecture in WN evolved over centuries, optimized energy efficiency through passive cooling techniques (Gabril, 2014;Ayçam, Akalp & Görgülü, 2020). However, modernization and Western influences have led to energy-intensive designs reliant on imported materials like concrete, steel, and glass (Giddings, Almehrej & Cresciani, 2020;Hegazy, 2014;Mufid Al-Samarai, 2015). ...
... But there are no current studies of the Ch'ampa, being a material predominantly from the Colla culture of the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands, material that is extracted directly from the ground [2] [3,4], but there are many investigations on the traditional adobe as ancestral knowledge of Colombia [5], as the heritage of Najran [6], recovering it as a lesson of traditional architecture of Spain [7] and even Europe [8] and Africa [9]. There are many standards and regulations that have included the earth blocks as a building material [10], even filling part of the gap in the thermal comfort standards for Libya [11], even considering researches of comparison between thermal and resistant aspects with earth construction elements [12,13], in addition to its mechanical behavior [14], and we could mention many more, but none addresses the Ch'ampa as a traditional material, which is worth studying since its use cannot remain unnoticed in the existing information base. This is the main reason why we have chosen to present this first study on the identification of soil characteristics for the extraction of Ch'ampa as earth block masonry. ...
This study aims to optimize the form of courtyard buildings to improve thermo-luminous performance through numerical simulation models in hot, arid climates. Courtyard architecture is particularly effective in mitigating the adverse effects of extreme climatic conditions, such as elevated air temperatures and intense solar radiation. Incorporating a central courtyard into building designs enhances both daylighting and thermal conditions within adjacent interior spaces, as evidenced by prior research. To ensure occupant comfort, meticulous design of the building form is essential. balancing the demands for cooling and daylighting during the design process remains a challenge. To achieve optimal thermo-luminous conditions, the study employs numerical simulations using the "DesignBuilder" software to assess the equilibrium between thermal and luminous performance. The proposed research utilizes a range of geometric environmental parameters, such as: Opening Ratio (OR), Aspect Ratio (AR), and Solar Shadow Index (SSI) to optimize the thermal and luminous environment. The findings indicate that a deep-shallow courtyard configuration is the most effective design for achieving a balanced thermo-luminous environment.
Local architecture evolved over time through trails and errors enriching humans’ experience and knowledge on how to adapt and adjust his living space with surroundings even in extreme weather conditions. Although, many of indigenous settlements would not provide high or good level of indoor environmental quality according to current built environment standards. However, those dwellings are very good example in some other aspects including serving social life and effectively adapting to surrounding climatic conditions. This research studies the courtyard concept in traditional houses and how it was developed to adhere to various environmental and cultural principles in the old city of Ghadames. The study relies on descriptive and simulative analysis of existing and proposed designs to optimise the use of the courtyard to maximise natural environment like ventilation and provision of human thermal comfort. Improving the environmental performance of the courtyard design came through multi-method of investigation such as measuring and monitoring indoor physical environment inside traditional and modern houses. The majority of locals were saying that courtyard design usually linked to low-income communities despite the space offers many advantages over modern housing designs. The dynamic simulation did not indicate good performance of the courtyard as an isolated unit whereas houses in the old city were highly compact reducing exposure to solar heat. Researchers developed new courtyard design which was tested by DesignBuilder simulation tool considering all measures including compactness ratio and vegetation effect. It was approved that courtyard would be an important design element in modern era and very good results indicating good level of natural light of 2.9% as well as drop of temperature at 28C degrees during daytime. Additionally, the study shed the light on the use of sustainable construction materials which readily available like palm-tree fiber as organic insulation material can be installed in the external envelope with efficient thermal coefficient. Keywords: Environmental design, DesignBuilder, Courtyard and thermal comfort
Global environmental problems are one of the most critical problems of humankind. Increasing energy consumption and CO 2 emissions are among the most important causes of global environmental problems. The existing building sector is vital in increasing energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. Buildings are responsible for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions and about 40% of energy consumption. Energy used for heating and cooling is one of the most important causes of energy consumption in the building sector. Reducing the energy used for heating and cooling is possible with sustainable building design. One of the most essential criteria of sustainable building design is using passive air conditioning strategies. Traditional architecture is a crucial guide for using passive air conditioning elements. This paper presents an architectural taxonomic proposal for passive cooling strategies used in traditional architecture in hot and dry climate areas of the globe. The aim is to facilitate and simplify access to all cooling strategies and provide a guide for their adaptation to modern architecture. A total of 55 passive cooling strategies were identified in the research. Within the taxonomic proposal's scope, the strategy was first divided into four groups: settlement scale, building scale, space scale, and building environment scale, depending on the usage criteria. Then, this grouping was split into 16 subgroups. A taxonomic proposal was created by considering the intended use of the identified strategies. The findings indicate that although traditional architecture in hot and dry climates primarily focuses on heat protection and heat dissipation is also highly utilized. It has been determined that thermal insulation, shading and natural ventilation cooling strategies come to the fore. In addition, it has been determined that approximately 50% of the strategies used for cooling purposes are related to thermal insulation, shading, and natural ventilation. The taxonomic proposal guides modern adaptations in the built environment by combining traditional passive design strategies and simplifying their use. It can also be adapted to different climates and contribute to creating new modern building design guidelines.
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