Climate Responsive Design Strategies for Contemporary Low-rise Residential Buildings in Tropical Environment of Enugu, Nigeria

Abstract

The skyline of the developing world is decorated with medium and low rise structures and Nigeria is not an exception. Located in the tropics mainly characterized by an elevated air temperature and high relative humidity; obtaining the desired level of indoor thermal comfort without mechanical aid is a design challenge for most of her building structures in recent times. However, airflow inside a building depends not only on external wind velocity but also on a number of Architectural design features and principles. The study, aimed at identifying design element and strategies that modify the indoor comfort conditions as well as energy savings of tropical buildings. Through case study research approach and the review of existing literature, a comparison of the colonial and contemporary existing building designs were made in the study area based on seven architectural design features that can influence thermal comfort condition. The study found that contemporary building designs in the study area have in recent times departed from the traditional applications of passive design strategies used in colonial architecture and have taken a non-compactible design models for tropical climates like disappearance of eaves projections, shrinkage of balconies, reduced headroom heights and window sizes. Furthermore, the result highlights the need to evolve a climate responsive design as means of reducing heat stress in the contemporary Nigerian low-rise buildings. It concludes and recommends that architects and designers should review their design approaches in favour of functional building requirements for climate-responsive and energy efficient buildings, which will be less dependent on mechanical systems in order to achieve maximum thermal comfort levels in our buildings.