Understanding the environmental performance of the Iraqi traditional courtyard house, Is there an order of façades orientation in randomly oriented land plots?

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the order used to orient spaces within the Iraqi traditional courtyard houses in an urban fabric of randomly oriented land plots. The importance of the subject lies in the possibility of benefiting from this order in developing contemporary building designs to achieve thermal comfort and energy conservation. The methodology of the research included the investigation of the geographical orientation effect on the exposure of walls to solar radiation to recognize the directions that sun can effectively be blocked in the summer, while maintaining exposure to it in winter. Other directions were also identified, where either blocking the sun is practically difficult or where they have no sun. The paper analyzed the orientation of spaces surrounding courtyard in a traditional fabric to verify whether they follow a specific order or not. It was found that the majority percentage of houses is oriented to the desired directions, despite the randomness of the land plot orientation. This paper designed a model for a courtyard house that simulates ones in the traditional fabric to prove that building spaces can be oriented to specific geographic directions even with randomly oriented land plot.