Abstract

The formation of new attitudes towards architecture and environment with the aim of promoting the quality of human life by the help of green and sustainable strategies, as well as reducing the reliance on fossil energies and minimizing the consumption of energy made identification of the passive cooling and heating strategies used for creating a condition of comfort for man along the history, to be taken into considerations more precisely and comprehensively. In Iran desert, in order to create harmony with its hot and arid climate, vernacular architects have contrived and applied some strategies as a response to desert conditions so that they can meet the demands of the inhabitants, while the designs are based on environmental concerns and sustainable interaction between human and environment are observed. Although some studies have been carried out to identify different vernacular cooling strategies of hot and arid climates but there exists no enough understanding of conscious designing based on the air movement pattern at hand. Cooling strategies like designing elevated yards, earth heating, Sabats, massing and reducing the surface area of building are sustainable vernacular strategies in hot-arid climates. In the present article, an effort was made to identify the passive cooling strategies effective in reinforcing the cooling velocity to create a sustainable micro-climate in hot and arid climate, introducing a sustainable traditional-vernacular sample house in a margin of the desert. Next, the effectiveness of the strategies are displayed by computer modeling. The provided strategies accord with the accepted principles of passive systems.