Analysis of Historic Buildings in Terms of their Microclimatic and Thermal Comfort Performances “Example of Konya Slender Minaret Madrasah”

Abstract

Building envelope plays an important role for a building by protecting and providing the comfort required by the users of the inner building. Fundamental factors to be considered in achieving comfort ability are the indoor air temperature, average surface temperatures, air variation ratio, indoor relative humidity, illumination level and brightness. For historic buildings and those of traditional construction an appropriate balance needs to be achieved between building conservation and measures to improve energy efficiency if lasting damage is to be avoided both to the building’s character and significance and its fabric. In this study, one of the best historic historical building and its envelope, the Konya Slender Minaret Madrasah, was taken into consideration and its microclimatic evaluation was made. The results show that the 13th Century Slender Minaret structure complies with the thermal comfort ability criteria when the energy performance criteria are compared with the comfort ability. Under this context, the structure has been found to be a useful work-piece particularly after conducting the wind flow analysis across the building and the evaluation of the wind and heat flow together with the total surface heat flow and solar heat flow where it became clear that the building provided some insights on how other subsequent structures during the Seljuk era should be constructed in terms of comfort and energy conservation.