Vernacular and bioclimatic architecture and indoor thermal comfort implications in hot-humid climates: An overview

Abstract

Sustainable urban development, especially in disadvantaged regions, has increasingly gained a major strategic priority. New settlements and urban regeneration programs have to achieve an improvement of social life quality, promote economic growth and increase environmental protection practices and proper use of local resources. In this framework, building environment development must exploit natural resources with responsible approach by using local materials and traditional techniques. In this end, indoor comfort and energy consumption have to match the territories needs. Low energy and passive heating/cooling techniques should be considered as a valid option in many building projects. The paper reviews some models evaluating thermohygrometric comfort in natural ventilated buildings, based on adaptive approaches. A focus is given on Mozambican building traditions, and, finally it proposes a case study where, by the recovery of Mozambican old traditions, a new healthcare facility is designed to be energy autonomous also including large use of natural ventilation.