(Background) (Hypotheses) (Methodology) (Analysis) (Conclusion) (References).

Conclusions

Mit Rehan, a neo-traditional house in Cairo, Egypt.

The conducted investigation is an attempt to overcome previous limitations in the conceptualization of our professions "romantic" attitude about traditional or neo-tradtional architecture. By choosing an example of Hassan Fathy's residential houses in Egypt and comparing it to a modern Cairene Villa of the same size, area, and number of floors, three hypothesis were proposed related to previous studies on the topic. Results of the conducted field research confirmed the hypothesis that Hassan Fathy's neo-traditional houses save energy over their contemporary modern counterparts. However, this energy is not in the daily use of the building due to decrease in cooling loads as mistakenly conceived in the current literature. The energy conservation is mostly in the life cycle analysis of the structures and is related to sustainability of energy resources consumed in the building process rather than in the building use. This could shed light on the important role of the design and construction strategies employed by Hassan Fathy in the use of simple man-made thick masonry walls of very high thermal mass and considerably low thermal resistance. Implications might suggest a broader conceptualization of environmental sustainability related to the energy levels consumed in producing high technology materials that achieve the same results of these simple protocols.

A modern villa in Cairo, Egypt, by architect Ali Nassar.

Similarly, based on the assumption that traditional and neo-traditional environments are more enclosed with smaller window areas, thus as hypothesized, would have a better thermal performance over contemporary villas. Results indicated that visual information related to the degree of glazing and openness of modern structures can be a deceiving criteria in judging their performance. Although visually Hassan Fathy's Mit Rehan seemed to have less glazing and openings than the Cairo Villa, the vital statistics showed (Table 2) that their glazing to floor area percentages are similar. Moreover, recessed windows covered with wooden lattice work in Fathy's Mit Rehan have similar thermal performance as flush windows shaded with overhangs in the Cairo Villa. This might suggest that both strategies are valid criteria in enhancing the building's thermal performance and should be viewed according to the suitability of the context and user's preferences.

Users thermal association with the building's form and style as well as their association of thermal comfort to certain architectural elements might be an important finding and could be investigated in future research. This could also introduce a different conceptualization towards the users perception of thermal comfort as related to context, building materials, and building form. The goal of this study was to convey a true image of the thermal behavior of traditional and neo-traditional environments as compared to contemporary modern ones. It is hoped that this could spur future research to investigate new conceptualizations of thermal comfort related to the users perceptions, emotions and associations towards building forms. As important, the application of the findings to future designs that achieve the balance of learning from traditional architecture without over romanticizing it.

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Created: 03/17/96
Revised: 09/09/02

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