Positioning buildings on a zoning island to provide maximum shading: a case study

Abstract

Because summer days are long, and the weather is too hot, people desire shady spaces to escape the overwhelming effect of the sun. To keep buildings and open-air environments in the shade, a suitable building location design may be created at the planning stage. Positioning of buildings and recreation areas in the maximum amount of shade is closely dependent on the location of the buildings to be built, the distance between the buildings, the time of the day and the sun angles at a particular hour. It was found necessary to carry out this study, since no study was found to be carried out regarding the positioning of buildings in the maximum amount of shade. For buildings to be built in residential areas, separate or block arrangements are applied. This study discusses a building to be built on a reconstruction island in Adana in the Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey. First of all, the shading effects of the buildings adjacent to the building in a parcel were examined in detail based on various positions of the façades of the building and different values of the solar azimuth. As a result of the study, the positioning of the buildings for providing the maximum shading was investigated. If the front and rear façades of the buildings were located in the west-east direction, according to the positioning of the buildings in the north-south direction, the front and rear façades would be exposed to less sunlight and more shade. In h = ± 6 sun hours, the façades of buildings in the parcels facing the north were under the influence of the sun rays coming from the side, and the rear façades of the buildings were in the shade.