The Relationship Of Building Orientation To Indoor Thermal Comfort And Daylighting: The Case Of Condominium Building In Adama City, Ethiopia

Abstract

The Orientation Of The Building Is One Of The Sustainable Passive Techniques For Minimizing Energy Consumption And Maintaining A Building's Indoor Thermal Comfort In Terms Of Indoor Temperature, Solar Radiation, Aspect Ratio, And Window To Wall Ratio. The Study Focused On The Effect Of Poorly Oriented Buildings And Did Not Consider The Climate Condition, Sun's Path Of Location, Wind Direction, And Window To Wall Ratio (WWR) To Investigate The Impact Of Orientation As A Design Variable On Indoor Thermal Comfort And Daylight Illumination. Buildings Are Not Designed To Reduce Solar Gain And Enhance Indoor Thermal Comfort In Generally Hot And Dry Places Like Adama City, Which Receives Intensive Sunlight All Year. Duket Condominium Was Chosen To Investigate The Thermal Comfort Of Naturally Ventilated At A Specific Condominium Location In Adama City In Various Orientations On A Distinct Solar Axis (I.E., S???N, E???W, NW???Se, And Ne???SW) With Window To Wall Ratios (I.E., South: 52.7%, East: 35.5%, West: 41.6%, North: 25.3%) And 57.2% Aspect Ratio Using A Field Survey, And Data Collected During The Hottest Months Of The Year, April And May 2022. First, A Data Logger Was Used To Take Measurements Of Indoor Air Temperature, Relative Humidity, Airspeed, And Daylight Illuminance For Different Building Orientations. In Addition, Using A Standard Questionnaire, The Residents Were Asked About Their Thermal Perceptions In Their Households. Secondly, The Collected Data Was Processed Using Excel And Ecotect Software Was Used For Simulation And Sun Paths Of Location. According To The Data Gathering And Analysis, The Result Demonstrates That More Than Half Of Those Respondents (64.8%) On The E-W Axis (South Oriented) Are Uncomfortable. The E-W Axis Was About 30c To 40c And 300lux To 500lux Higher Than That Of The Building-Oriented S-N Axis. Finally, Based On The Adaptive Model Of Ashrae-55 And Iso-7730, The Results Showed That The East-West Orientation Affects Indoor Thermal Comfort When Compared To The South-North Orientation. In This Regard, The Study Concludes That A South North Orientation Is The Best Optimum Orientation And Provides Good Thermal Comfort