Thermally comfortable passive houses for tropical uplands

Abstract

In many countries located close to the equator, such as India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and countries in parts of Africa and South America, certain regions can be considered tropical uplands. In such regions, the cold discomfort that occurs during the night and warm discomfort that occurs during the daytime could become a problem unless houses are planned with careful consideration. It is shown using computer simulation with case-studies carried out for the climatic data pertaining to tropical uplands of Sri Lanka that the adverse climatic effects could be minimised by carefully planning houses so that their occupants can adjust to the prevailing conditions. The result of this study is also presented as a set of rules with an example of a conceptual house so that designers can easily include such rules at the conceptual design stage of house-planning.