Passive Environmental Control at Neighborhood and Block Scales for Conservation of Historic Settlements: The Case Study of Huatzai Village in Wang-An, Taiwan

Abstract

Climate change has gradually become a great challenge for heritage conservation. This study demonstrated that a hierarchal strategy corresponding to the scale of climate or weather date can be an alternative approach to making heritage conservation more efficient and sustainable. Therefore, the passive environmental control strategies at neighborhood and block scales are developed to effectively connect climate actions, normally at global or city scales, and the traditional preservation methods at building scale. The research results reflect the same conclusion as previous studies in that wind is the key factor affecting degradation mechanisms on heritage assets. Moreover, the adoption of weather data is a critical factor that influences the accuracy of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation results of the detailed regional wind performance, which is supportive for strategy development. According to the simulation results, the study site, Huatzai village, with neighborhood-scale strategy can gain an improvement in overall wind impact. The velocity reduction is more than 70% in the windward areas. The block-scale strategy with the reuse of existing structures can bring 90% velocity reduction for the wake areas and the high-risk zones with strong turbulence.