A thermal comfort survey of courtyard housing in Iran.

This paper describes a thermal comfort survey of people living in courtyard housing. The study took place in the Iranian city of Ilam, which experiences a hot, dry climate. The survey compared the thermal comfort conditions of people outside using the courtyard housing, and was conducting during the hot summer season. Over 570 subjects responded to thermal comfort questionnaires. At the same time physical measurements were taken of such parameters as dry bulb air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity. The mean neutral temperatures for the outdoor courtyard spaces and house interiors were found to be quite similar at 27.6C and 28.8C respectively. However, other thermal comfort variables, such as clothing value, metabolic rate and environmental conditions were different for the two locations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the thermal comfort adaptive behaviours exhibited by the two groups studied in the survey.