Sustainable house project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Most of the Arab countries, Including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are located between the orbit of Capricorn and Cancer, which is called the hot climate countries. The temperature in these countries is higher than any other region in the world. The relative humidity varies between the low (dry weather) and high (humid weather). This climate affects the nature life of this area which requires the attempt to deal with differents aspects, especially in the field of architecture and urban planning. In the past decades, special procedures and methods have been proven to be successful for climate treatment both at the level of the small residential unit and at the urban level in rural or urban areas. The steady increase in the volume of construction in this area led to use the assistance of experts in engineering and architecture from the developed countries. These experts took into consideration the climate conditions and the preservation of the local architecture style. However, the blind copying of the local architects distorted the architectural style. The fact that they did not take into consideration the climate treatments caused these distortions. As a result, the new architectural style was based meanly on the technology to create air ventilation and artificial lighting. As a result, the built structures have placed significant impression on energy use almost 50% of the primary energy in Saudi Arabia. The energy used by the construction division continues to increase. Energy consumption in the commercial and residential buildings sector will continue to grow until buildings can be designed to use energy efficient design methods as well as produce enough energy to offset the growing energy demand of these building. It is imperative to study and research this architecture and to learn from it and extract principles and design guidelines for application in contemporary settings.