Climate Responsive Residential Architecture in Dhading
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IOE Pulchowk Campus
Abstract
Climate responsive design is considered to be one of the major requirements to drive
the building sector towards sustainable development. Climate-responsive design in a
particular region is influenced by factors such as air temperature, relative humidity,
wind, irradiation, and rainfall. Due to Nepal's very variable geography, there are many
different climatic conditions within a short distance. The country's building industry
has adopted standard design and construction methods as a result of the introduction of
modern construction technologies, ignoring the local climate and relying instead on
energy-intensive mechanical measures to offer comfort inside the building. For the
study primary quantitative and qualitative field data and secondary quantitative climate
data was collected from Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and developed
bioclimatic chart and Mahoney table which gives the different design strategies for
Dhading. The study reviews examples of traditional and modern residential architecture
and its building features in Dhading and analyses in a qualitative and qualitative
manner. Climatic data from Dhading shows that most of the month in a year are hot.
From bioclimatic chart it was found that the summer temperature is high in day time
hence passive cooling strategies are recommended. From Mahoney table also heavy
walls and roof with permanent provision of air movement is recommended. From the
study it was found that traditional buildings have less indoor air temperature but have
high indoor humidity level. However traditional building materials and design features
applied in Dhading are climate responsive than contemporary buildings.
Description
Climate-responsive architecture is described as architecture that effectively
incorporates components of the local climate to enhance occupant thermal and visual
comfort with little to no recourse to non-renewable energy sources (Yannas, 2003). One
of the essential requirements for guiding the construction sector toward sustainable
development is climate-responsive design (Szokolay, 2012)