The Impact of Traditional Architectonic Characters on the Environmental and Thermal Condition of Houses: A Case Study of Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq

Traditional houses in Erbil City, with their time-honored designs and materials, offer a compelling study of sustainable living, especially when juxtaposed with their modern counterparts.correspondingly, thermal comfort is the overarching concept of creating a physical environment that is the most comfortable for its occupants.This study examines the differences in thermal performance between the modern traditional homes in Erbil, Northern Iraq.Thermal comfort was measured in the field as part of the study.Four case studies of current modern houses common in Erbil have been selected and one traditional case from Erbil Citadel contains all the architectural and traditional details.Temperature and humidity were among the environmental factors examined for the summer months of June and July.While the most recent thermal equipment had been used to monitor and record the indoor and outdoor temperatures for the homes under study, The most collected data, recorded during June and July 2023, can be considered as a representative of a typical summer period.The weather conditions during those weeks were sunny, clear, and hot.Maximum outside temperature, 39-41, was the typical value during this period of the year.The adaptive thermal comfort model for Iraq was used as a reference for validation, according to the result, the indoor air temperature of a traditional house is maintained at 21.2 and 26.3 throughout the summer with a relative humidity of 9% to 11%, which is within the ASHRAE-recommended comfort zone.Modern houses maintain an indoor temperature between 28 to 37 with a relative humidity of 12% to 16%, which is outside of the comfort range.The findings demonstrate that because traditional houses employ passive and natural building techniques, about thermal comfort, they are superior to the current ones.This research offers information about the possible strategies for raising indoor thermal condition levels in modern houses.