Vernacular housing practices in Burkina Faso: Representative models of construction in Ouagadougou and walls hygrothermal efficiency

peer reviewedIn Burkina Faso, particularly in Ouagadougou, the walls of the houses are made of several local materials. The choice of a material implies a suitable constructive technique and an appropriate architecture. The walls are either earth-based, i.e. Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) or Adobe, or based on cement-based materials such as hollow concrete blocks. This paper proposes a description of the vernacular construction practices according to the material used for the walls and tries to explore the hygrothermal behaviour of various wall compositions. A hygrothermal simulation of a hollow concrete blocks wall and a CEBs wall using the WUFI®Pro software is carried out in order to compare the humidity flux passing through interior surface of each wall and to analyze the influence of integrated moisture in the calculation of heat flow. It is shown that, for CEBs wall, both thermal and hygrothermal simulation of heat flow give similar results. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

A Review to Innovative Ventilation Techniques Used in Historical Hospitals in Middle East and Europe

Historically, natural ventilation has been an important factor to achieve thermal comfort and reduce energy consumption in healthcare buildings. Since the recent century, there has been an increasing change and scientific advancement that led to the reliance of mechanical ventilation systems in commercial buildings and especially in hospitals and healthcare settings. However, the fully mechanical system approaches have changed gradually after global warming and the lack of energy sources. In this context, this study investigated systematically, passive ventilation techniques used in medieval near eastern hospitals ”Bimaristans” and historical hospitals in Europe. The study traced the roots of natural ventilation in a sample of historical healthcare buildings. It also investigated ventilation techniques used in historical hospitals in Middle East and Europe. This study is looking forward to discover the architectural design parameters’ effects of historical hospitals on ventilation, to make a better environment for patients’ health by learning from past lessons in traditional architecture, and how could we adapt these techniques in our nowadays healthcare buildings. This step will allow further research on the adaption and integration of passive techniques inherited from the past in our contemporary hospital design