Abstract
This paper discusses the importance of understanding the ecology as part of architectural education. Rather than focusing on the heat phenomenon as frequently researched, this paper explores the opposite ideas by identifying the concept of cool pocket and designing it as a mean for heat mitigation in a tropical built environment. Recent researches show that providing a microclimate that responds human thermal comfort can contribute to the building energy performance and at the same time promote activities in outdoor space. The relation and interaction among various microclimate factors with the land, water body, arrangement of vegetations, building’s geometry and configurations, create different scenarios of the thermal condition, including possible cool pocket. Using air temperature and wind as indicators, possibilities of cool pocket will be explored and investigated through CFD Simulation. The result shows the importance of ecological understanding as part of designing cool pocket in a tropical context in a learning process and scenario-based simulation in developing design strategies.
Highlights
“...the task of architecture is not merely to abolish gross thermal extremes but to provide the optimal thermal environments for the whole spectrum of modern life” [2]
If thermal comfort is a condition defined by air temperature, air flow, relative humidity, mean radiant temperature, aside the human factor, the microclimate is composed by climatic attributes – air temperature, air flow, humidity, solar radiation, heat release, etc - and their interaction with building arrangements, vegetation, and water body
The scenarios are built on the ecological understanding that recognizes the various climatic attributes within a context and their complex interaction with the developed physical arrangements, building envelope, vegetation and body water
Summary
Ecology is an inseparable part of architecture and understanding ecology is a necessity whether or not architectural sustainability is at the core of our concern. There has been a significant shift towards the development of integration among ecology, built environment and energy into architectural design [1]. This integration includes a discussion towards thermal comfort which affects human lives. Thermal condition of the particular environment should be embedded in the architecture itself. It is not an object resulted in the architecture, but rather a dynamic engagement of elements of the ecological system. There is a question of how and in what way we can use ecology as an analytical tool since the system involves various aspects to it.
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