The Building Technological Solution for Hot Humid Climatic Modification in Architecture

Abstract

The Eastern constructional beliefs such as “Feng Shui” and “Vaastu” from ancient China and India have influenced to building design in Thailand and many countries for decades. Feng Shui and Vaastu masters usually have conflicts to designers and owners. It is found that three influential factors of these beliefs are Heaven factors (climate and changes), Earth factors (topography and landform), and Human factors (culture and comfort). The hidden goal of these beliefs is human comfort especially thermal comfort and security. This research presents the relation between the influential factors and their contents. Then, we can apply by using Earth factors as the climatic modification in architecture in order to improve human thermal comfort in the locations of hot and humid climate such as Thailand. Human thermal comfort consists of 6 factors such as air temperature, relative humidity, mean radiant temperature (MRT), wind velocity, clo-value, and metabolism rate. The Earth factors can assist and improve human thermal comfort (MRT and wind velocity) results from scientific research. MRT increases comfort up to 40% and wind velocity up to 30%. Finally, Earth factors (topography and land form) can improve human comfort from 20-45%.