Comparative thermal performance of living spaces in vernacular houses Lucknow shading and materials

Abstract

The significance of learning from vernacular, for its favourable response to prevailing climate has been ascertained by numerous scholarships. Lucknow an architecturally and culturally known city has grown spontaneously, comprising of diverse layers from varied colonisation. Broadly, three distinct generic house forms are evident, the core urban court-yard houses; colonial adapted bungalows and the semi-rural mud houses. With minor variations, they exist in diverse contexts, constituting the city s varying morphology. Moreover Lucknow experiences typical composite climate of hot summers, cold winters and warm-humid monsoons necessitating dissimilar responses from built forms. This study has focussed on analysing comparative thermal performances of a selected examples from the three distinct generic types of Lucknow vernacular houses. Within the contrasting cases the major objective has been to evaluate relative thermal performances and ascertain which type(s) respond better to prevailing climate than others and also determine what factor(s) or strategies contribute to their improved performances. Furthermore role of Shading and Material Properties has been investigated in depth for all selected houses. Most significantly the study has aimed to establish emergent energy efficient principles and parameters applicable to the region s composite climate. Thermal comfort, having utmost effect on human health relies on the building envelope s efficient thermal performance. Of the many indoor thermal comfort estimation methods the adaptive model of comfort now a universally expedient modus, has been used for this study s premise. Furthermore, tested adaptive models by Humphreys, Nicol and ASHRAE have been adopted for examining thermal comfort of selected houses in Lucknow s Climate. Consequently, the selected cases have been examined against prescribed architectural parameters, followed by simultaneous seasonal monitoring of indoor temperatures and humidity with dataloggers.