Given the hot climate we live in, and the trend towards rising global temperatures, thought this thread would be useful.

This is lifted off a very interesting website run by Mazlin Ghazalie, a Malaysian architect.
His website is http://tsl8.blogspot.com/



This is a 'kampong' houses of Kedah, a state in the north of peninsula Malaysia. This well- preserved house, were relocated to a park in front of the State Secretariat Office. The frame and wall cladding is made of local hardwoods - assembled without using nails - and the roof is made of 'attap' weaved from palm fronds.
We all love traditional architecture, but timber is getting more and more expensive. Per square meter of sawn hardwood can cost 20 times more than concrete. Attap roofs are notoriously leaky.
These houses are highly ventilated and the lightweight structure has little thermal mass. They are 'ambient' houses that follow the surrounding outdoor temperature. That is fine in the shady countryside. In hotter town areas that suffer from the heat island effect, they can get uncomfortably warm.
It is right that these house are conserved, but for housing today, they serve as inspiration rather than solutions


http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/722/1000569tp9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

More from his website. Click on thumbnails for larger image.

Many cities suffer from overheating, whereby the ambient air temperature in suburban and downtown urban areas can be 2 to 3 degrees Celsius hotter than in rural areas. This is termed the urban heat island effect and is caused by fewer plants and trees and the greater absorption of solar radiation by more buildings and roads. These temperature increases, although seemingly small from an engineering viewpoint, have profound effects on human comfort.

Outdoor Heat Stress

Meteorological data collected between 1975 and 1995 from the Subang weather station, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia reveals that the average outdoor temperature in Kuala Lumpur has increased by 1.20C during this 21 year period. As shown Kuala Lumpur is getting hotter by 0.60C per decade.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8186/klgettinghotterpb3.th.jpg (http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?image=klgettinghotterpb3.jpg)

This finding supports anecdotal subjective evidence from long term residents of Kuala Lumpur who claim city living is becoming more and more uncomfortable compared to the rural areas. This previously unreported data was part of a larger study to construct a Malaysian weather year, termed a Test Reference Year (Reimann et al 2000).An objective measure of heat stress imposed by the outdoor Malaysian environment during different periods of the year has been calculated from the Test Reference Year in a novel Thermal Discomfort index.

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/3900/outdoorthermaldiscomforvr2.th.jpg (http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=outdoorthermaldiscomforvr2.jpg)

One unit of thermal discomfort is defined here as the heat stress suffered by a person wearing light tropical clothing whilst resting outdoors for one hour in the shade with no wind whilst the average ambient temperature is 10C above the upper thermal comfort level (estimated to be 280C for the Malaysian humid tropics, Davis et al 2000). For example, a person under these conditions when the average ambient temperature between 1pm and 2 pm is 330C suffers, by definition, 5 units of thermal discomfort. These units per hour, summed over 24 hours, provide a quantitative measure of human heat stress for that particular day.

The results reveal that the population of Malaysia suffers outdoor heat stress throughout the year; there is no cool season. Whilst Malaysia, being close to the equator, is hot every day of the year, this index reveals for the first time the true but rather hidden seasonality as felt by humans. Two heat-waves, imposing 40 units of thermal discomfort per day, occur regularly in March and May whilst the 4 months from September to December are much more pleasant, imposing only 15 units of thermal discomfort per day.

Indoor Heat Stress

The situation indoors is not much better. Study at UPM has shown that nearly all of the modern concrete houses built over the last 50 years in Malaysia grossly overheat (Davis et al 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003). In one example a single story concrete terrace house during a heat-wave is way above the upper thermal comfort level every minute of the night and day.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/1637/indoorthermaldiscomfortri3.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=indoorthermaldiscomfortri3.jpg)

However, the outdoor environment is perfectly comfortable for 14 hours per day. Experiments such as this during different times of the year, using a miniature temperature data-logging technique (Davis et al, 1995), has established that all 2 million modern concrete houses cause two to three times more thermal discomfort (heat stress) than the outdoor environment. The general though rather sad conclusion is that the Malaysian urban population would be far more thermally comfortable if they abandoned their houses and lived under trees. This absurd situation has provided the motivation to design sustainable thermally comfortable houses which avoid or minimize the high electricity cost of air-conditioning.

Another great slideshow on Mohd.Ghazalie's website. This one on info presented by Visiting Prof Mohd.Peter Davis to UPM

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liping_t, I like those laminated sidings(not real wood siding) you find in most American houses.

liping_t, I like those laminated sidings(not real wood siding) you find in most American houses.

I don't think they do much for temperature regulation though.

I wonder.Is the ventilation chimneys widely used in Malaysia?

I wonder.Is the ventilation chimneys widely used in Malaysia?
I remember at one time, quite popular with most houses near me (d.Jaya) fitting their roofs with it. Unclear abt status now.

guys, check out the energy efficient bungalows at Precint 16 by Putra Perdana/ Senandung Budiman. it uses BiPV systems and rain water harvesting for grey water usage.