Good design is location-specific
The Insight
A building designer who has spent their career designing for temperate climates may not understand just how different their design needs to be for the tropics.
This isn’t necessarily a wilful ignorance – most codes and standards are written for temperate environments. This can make the transition to designing for the tropics cause considerable angst.
Designing for the tropics requires consideration of a whole different set of parameters. Simply ‘borrowing’ a good design from a temperate climate does not work.
Borrowed designs will not have considered the building’s orientation or latitude, or how the sunlight hits the windows, or local conditions such as breezes and vegetation.
Good design is location-specific.
The Impact
Good design considers orientation, aspect, environmental impacts and local conditions such as traffic, access and acoustics. In Northern Australia, greater emphasis needs to be placed on matters such as humidity control, condensation, heat transference, glare and lighting.
When trying to increase energy efficiency, designers should consider ways to reduce the power consumption of air-conditioning and lighting. Some considerations could include window shading devices, thermal breaks and appropriate insulation to minimise heat transfer.
The creation of liveable spaces that optimise user comfort and satisfaction, the designer could consider placing utility spaces to the west to insulate the building from uncomfortable afternoon sun and heat gains through walls and windows and other similar planning opportunities.
Some general suggestions that a designer may consider include:
Placing a pool on the side of prevailing winds to pick up any cooling benefits of the water.
Vegetation to provide shade and protection from winds, as well as the other cooling benefits of the vegetation.
Ventilating roof spaces.
Note: also consider the increased risk of condensation caused by the increased air humidity in the tropics as a result.Cross flow ventilation – extremely important to reduce heat build-up in the spaces.
Continuous vapour barriers to minimise condensation issues within the building.
Appropriate insulation under roof sheeting.
Avoidance of heat “bridge” and provision of thermal breaks in the fabric of the building.
While not conclusive, the measures listed above provide a good basis for appropriate tropical design.