November 4 2022

Design Strategies for Different Climates

Lecture at NUST Faculty of Architecture, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

This lecture was held by Aarti Dhingra and Christian Frenzel and introduces design strategies for different climates. First they identify the key factors and elements that characterize different climates. In a second step, the instructors aim to promote understanding of the relationship between climate or respectively weather and building design. The goal is to enable students to review climate studies and identify challenges and opportunities for passive design strategies. They should also be able to prepare climate analysis reports using various tools after completing the course.

The lecture is part of the collaboration of the Transsolar World Academy and NUST Faculty of Architecture in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe on the topic of environmental design. The Transsolar World Academy contribution complements the university's Sustainable Building course.

See presentation >

Overview content:
Intro Design Strategies for Different Climates | Part I: Concepts | Climate Factors | Climate Zones | Climate Responsive Design | How to design for a specific climate? | Part II: Climate Analysis, Climate Elements | Temperature measurements, air temperature | Sky temperature | Dew Point Temperature vs. Wet Bulb Temperature | Condensation | Evaporative Cooling | Solar Radiation Measurement | Monthly Radiation on Horizontal Surface | Global Radiation and Temperature on South Facade | Monthly Radiation on Facades | Hourly Global Radiation on Facades: Winnipeg | Sun Position | Absolute Humidity and Relative Humidity | Wind measurements, Rose | Ground Temperature | Data Sources & Types | Psychrometric Chart | What factors affect human comfort? | Thermal Comfort, Comfort | Aga Khan Academy Kampala | Kinsuka Garden of Knowledge, Congo, Kinshasa | Material study | Air Conditioning

„This will greatly contribute to the diversification of the research areas that the department is currently involved in. It will give a sixth sense to the future focused architecture students to be able to identify challenges and opportunities, thereby responding to the needs of people and environment. This partnership will enhance the environmental design module. The students will continue to develop locally driven, climate-responsive architectural solutions and leadership qualities in solving the climate crisis using the built environment.”

Initiator: Innocent Mhandu

Innocent is currently a Consultant - Climate and Susainabilty with a Singapore based company GreenA Consultants Pte Ltd. Based in Africa he works on the company projects around Africa. He is both, a NUST alumni and Transsolar Academy alumni. He started the collaboration between Transsolar World Academy and The Department of Architecture at NUST.