THREE ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS FOR COMFORTABLE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT IN AN ARID REGION OF ALGERIA

摘要

In Algeria, old cities have all time been subject to much field researches concerned essentially with townrnplanning, rehabilitation, social and architectural interest but few attempts have analysed it in a quantitativernway. For this purpose a study on the thermal behaviour of traditional houses has been undertaken in order tornassess internal as well as external factors that enhance the comfortable indoor conditions especially in hotrnclimate during overheated period.rnThe present consideration discusses the results of an investigation on the internal climatic conditions in arntraditional house situated in the ksar of OUARGLA, one of the big cities of Algerian desert. Severalrnreadings of climatic elements such as air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, have been carried out.rnIt has been deduced that in addition to the effect of the traditional building material of high thermalrncapacity, three architectural elements have a great influence on the positive thermal response of thernbuilding. Those building components are the skiffa (entrance hall), the shoubak (a hole in the ceiling of thernpatio), and the staircase.