Impact of Urban Compactness, Architectural Form and Climatic Considerations: an Analysis in Traditional Islamic Buildings

Abstract

The special metropolitan texture of Islamic urban areas mirrored its social, political construction which was reflected in the architectural forms organized along the central avenue with the city’s mosques, Madrasahs, Sabils, and Bimaristans, worked as the public substance of the city and had their own particular arrangement of rules and guidelines. This was strongly echoed in the trademark design of the age, set inside a well-weave metropolitan texture of human extents a cityscape that served to enhance the central core of the Islamic cities. This paper reviews literature on the traditional Islamic city’s urban surroundings, architectural form, socio-cultural and climatic factors that influenced the formation of such unique Islamic Buildings, where these factors helped to shape the engineering styles and utilization of spaces inside traditional Muslim public buildings, especially the application of microclimatic modifiers such as open courtyards in Islamic houses, where in the middle age metropolitan places of Islamic urban areas were envisioned to make positive microclimatic conditions in their inside such as water fountains, Planted trees, Malqafs, Mashrabiyyahs, Semi open spaces, and Iwans. Consciousness of the multifactorial nature of the impacts on the Muslim view of houses and the utilization of spaces is essential for building planners, architects, and developers to be appropriately prepared to address the issues of customers. By offering alternatives for whatever is lowering people’s quality of life or efficiency. This research should contribute to Saudi Arabia’s 2030 Vision, which aims to implement more successful Sustainability ideas as those previously used in traditional Islamic cities.