Balancing between conservation and thermal comfort requirements has to be applied to maintain the cultural heritage and to develop the technologies to meet the historical building’s needs. So, the debate about this topic shall be performed through theoretical, analytical, and practical studies.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Is it possible to achieve balance between the thermal comfort requirements and conservation requirements in the naturally ventilated historical buildings in hot arid zones?
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Thermal comfort requirements and building performance issues in the historic buildings require multidisciplinary approach concerned with buildings that were designed in a specific period for a certain function to meet the need of their inhabitants and protect them from the climate conditions at that time. As time passed on, these buildings became an essential source of information about the history but in order to maintain these buildings the need of the current community and current climate conditions should be evaluated. Analysing the variables in this topic should be carried out in order to evaluate if it is useful to restore the natural ventilation system nowadays or it is better also to consider additional solutions to preserve architectural heritage and building use. Figure (5) shows simply the main variables in balancing between cultural heritage and thermal comfort requirements. The conservation issues and building energy performance issues will be discussed in this part.