One-year Field Study on Indoor Environment of Huizhou Traditional Vernacular Dwellings in China

Abstract

To create a comfortable indoor environment is the main development direction of the current architecture based on energy conservation, which has aroused a great interest in passive design strategies of traditional vernacular dwellings. This study conducted a field measurement in a typical traditional vernacular dwelling in Huizhou to investigate the building performance. On the basis of the monitored indoor and outdoor environment parameters by auto-recorders, one-year evaluation is obtained in terms of four aspects, i.e. thermal environment, visual environment, acoustic environment and thermal comfort. Results show that the dwelling has a good indoor environment and thermal comfort in spring and autumn. The indoor thermal comfort is also good during summer due to good natural ventilation and sun shading. However, the indoor thermal comfort is not fully satisfactory during winter due to the poor air tightness, and the indoor relative humidity is relative high all the year round. The acoustic environment is found to comply with relevant standards for all the rooms. The daylight of living room and bedroom is mainly depending on the patio, which leads to insufficient visual environment as required for some time.