Landscape as a Tool in Achieving “Adaptive Comfort”, a Study on Multi-Storied Residential Buildings in Tropics

Abstract

Maintaining indoor thermal and visual comfort has become the basic means of energy consuming modes in residential buildings in tropical climates. The amount of energy consumption in domestic building activities per year has become greater compared to nondomestic buildings. Meanwhile High – rise apartments in urban areas have become a regional trend in the present. Yet, livability of such constructions with respect to thermal comfort is less experimented. The research focuses on high rise residential apartments, which have been built surrounding natural sceneries or artificial built environs in urban settings. It investigates the impact of surrounding view of any artificial/natural landscape along with habitual and behavioral patterns in achieving ‘Psychological Comfort’ of dwellers with respect to its vertical level. The research highlights the aspect of “Human Comfort” ;( physical and psychological comfort) with respect to Effective thermal comfort, Neutrality temperature and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) taking as measurement indexes. The “adaptive comfort level “of the occupants has been investigated to identify its impact on “Human comfort”. A naturally ventilated high-rise apartment within Colombo region has been selected as the case study. The thermal investigation was done in two steps. The first investigation was to identify physical thermal behaviour and thermal patterns of the selected case study. On site measurements of indoor air temperature and relative humidity were taken using HOBOs while the wind velocity is measured using wind velocity meters, for 48 hours in selected occupied floor levels of the case study. Additionally the applicable ambient air temperature measurements are taken from meteorological Department of Sri Lanka. The Secondary thermal investigation was further done with a physical data collection of indoor air temperature, RH%, and wind velocity and also a questionnaire survey was conducted, focusing on PMV value and effective thermal comfort within the research limits. This investigation was helpful for the inurement of the first investigation results and to identify the adaptive comfort levels of the occupants’ in comparison with the physical measurements taken. The readings of air temperature, humidity and wind velocity were super imposed with results of the questionnaire survey and a comparative analysis was done. It highlighted a clear contradiction of ‘physical condition’ in to ‘adaptive condition’, with respect to human comfort. Research outcomes suggest that the “thermal” comfort of occupants did not vary within expected and accepted comfortable temperature levels. The outcome suggested that ‘Visual Comfort’ can be used as a Psychological tool in enhancing ‘Thermal Comfort’