Impact of building forms on thermal performance and thermal comfort conditions in religious buildings in hot climates: a case study in Sharjah city

ABSTRACT

The common system used for thermal regulation in mosques of United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. This system increases demands on energy consumption and increases CO₂ emission. A passive design approach is one of the measures to reduce these problems. This study involved an analytical examination of building forms, followed by testing the impact of these forms on its thermal performance and indoor thermal comfort. The tests were conducted using energy simulations software packages. Passive parameters such as shading devices, thermal insulation and natural ventilation were applied in six cases, including the baseline case within each form. The obtained results showed a significant effect of mosque forms as well as passive design techniques on the thermal comfort within the structures. The findings confirmed that the use of passive design alone would not help achieve thermal comfort, but reduce the annual energy consumption by10%. By integrating a hybrid air-conditioning system as another supporting approach, the annual energy consumption could be reduced by 67.5%, which allows for the designing of a much smaller HVAC system.

KEYWORDS:

• Passive design
• thermal performance
• mosque
• UAE

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their profound thanks to Osama Adel for his assistance in taking measurements and pictures of existing mosques as well as drawing main mosques’ forms and types.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Mushtaha is working for the University of Sharjah (UoS) in UAE as an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design. He Holds PhD in Urban and Environmental Engineering from Hokkaido University, Japan. Prior to his graduate studies, he worked at Urban Planning Department in Palestinian Territories for several years. During his work tenure, he gained a tremendous experience on space management and city planning. From 2007 till 2012, Dr Mushtaha worked as an assistant professor in the Architectural Engineering Department at Ajman University of Sciences and Technology, UAE. His main interest at the department was to do research that deals with urban housing design as well as sustainable architecture. Currently, he is the coordinator of the Environmental and Urban Design courses at UoS.

Omar Helmy is an architect with 12 years of work experience in the field of Architectural design in the Middle East. He worked for a number of respectable Multi-National Offices including GHD Global, EllisDon, WS Atkins and currently Damac Properties. During this period he has been involved in a number of high-end projects varying in size, complexity and location. These included Airport redevelopment, masterplans, high-rise towers and 5+ star hotels. Mr Helmy has a Master degree in Environmental Design of Buildings from the British University in Dubai, 2009. Following the Masters’, he has become responsible for Sustainable design and analysis for Atkins in the Dubai branch and accordingly has worked on a number of LEED/Green Building projects and masterplans. In 2014, Omar started his PhD at the European Graduate School, focusing on Digital Design in Architecture and Urban planning. Omar also poses a great interest in technology and advances in computer software especially in the field of Architectural design and visualisation.

Additional information

Funding

This research is part of project [grant number 140451] funded by Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Sharjah in UAE. The financial support as well as the support facilities is highly appreciated.