Climate responsive Courtyards: In Hot and Dry

Abstract

The practice of having a courtyard in most of all climatic regions has been there since medieval times. The courtyard has been the focal point of house. Most of the functional spaces can be observed to have connection to the courtyard if we look at planning of ancient times. Courtyards served privacy purposes where the internal interactions and sense of openness inside the built form were maximized keeping the outside separate. Not only were courtyards used as meeting places for the family, but they were also a source of ventilation and micro-climate creator. Architects usually deal with many design criteria with wider perspectives while designing, the climate is one of the most important among all. As climate varies with region, the effect of various aspects of climate also varies. The relation between the built environment and climate is very important. There are many ways to arrange architectural elements for optimum comfort. Among these, the Courtyard is one of the most important. In this light, this paper aims to investigate design orientation as well as configurations of the courtyard through climatic variables. The main intention of this study is to understand the role of environmental variables to determine better climatic configurations and treatments for courtyard design to make courtyards respond to climate. The paper starts with determining the aim and objectives. The second section of the paper focuses on literature reviews and determining climatic factors that affect the design as well as configurations of courtyards. For this, four case studies - ESI, EDII, NID-A, IPSA - are selected from hot and dry climatic region and analysed to understand relationship between courtyard and its climate.The framework for research has been derived through a literature review. The paper then goes on to methodologies supported by case studies. 2 courtyards of different size, shape, geometry from campus of Nirma university are shortlisted as primary case study. The inferences and conclusions are addressed depending on the results and analysis of case studies done.