Enhancing the Performance of Natural Ventilation by the Effect of Spatial Configurationsin Hot-Arid Climate

Abstract

Recently, Air is considered one of the most essential elements to human life as it affects indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and energy saving. At the early design stages, architects focus more on the general mass, layout, geometry, and shape of buildings and their influence on the air flow and natural ventilation than the spatial configuration. The handling of natural ventilation neglected as a base solution to achieve good internal environment for interior architectural spaces, users' health considerations, and their economic income. Therefore, this research tries to find the relationship between spatial configuration and natural ventilation, the potential of using space syntax approach to predict the effect of spatial configuration to the air movement to help architects at early design stages. The layout of a social housing unit in El-Shourouk city chosen as a case study. The results find a linear correlation between the two indicators: connectivity value and, in both building and room level.