Climatic Design Houses in Halls Creek, WA
Climatic design housing in Western Australia remains extremely hot and mostly dry, even though torrential rain may fall with less warning and leads to destructive, localized flooding. During the relatively short winter, days could be pleasurably warm, or cold and cloudy with consistent cold winds. Night temperatures can fall well below zero.
Influence of Climate Conditions to Building Designs in Halls Creek, WA
Western Australia has numerous climate zones dues to its big size. There is summer, winter, autumn, and spring patterns within the temperate zone, likewise affecting Grassland and Desert climatic areas and, wet and dry patterns. The Southwest features mild, wet winters as well as hot, dry summer. Halls Creek has more sunny daylights yearly than any part of the city. Rainfall is anticipated to be highest between May and September. Similarly, February tends to be the hottest month of all. As a result, a variety of housing design has been built to adapt to these conditions. High temperatures during the day call for multiple ventilations, verandas, and windows to control the heat waves during the day. On the other hand, there is need to consider designing open fire compartments or install heaters to raise room temperatures during wet and cold periods, particularly at night (Baverstock & Paolino, 2012).
Wet and Dry Seasons
Winters remain relatively cool and wet with day temperature varying from 20-30oC. This is due to the high humidity during wet period caused by the significant presence of water in the air. During the wet season, there is too much rainfall that regularly leads to flooding (Hooper, 2014).
Dry Seasons
Summer months (usually December to February) remain warm and hot. The weather is also fine and dry. The dry zones in Hall Creek characterize intense heat at daytime and cold during nighttime. Even in the short-mild winter the sun is usually shining. The prolonged summers imply that Hall's Creek activities revolve around outdoors. Average temperature during summer ranges from 30-40oC in daytime and 15oC at night (Baverstock et al., 2012).
Traditional Climatic Design Solutions
The standard Halls Creek traditional housing had utilized a combination of light and heavyweight building, along with deep surrounding verandas, to address these climatic limitations (Huang & Zhang, 2013). During the hot season, heavyweight construction of a house maintained it comparatively cool during daytime but allow it retain heat during nighttime, thus lightweight sleep-out rooms were more comfortable. During winter, the deep verandas enabled minimal direct sunlight to infiltrate and warm the house (Wilson, 2013).
Figure 1: Renovation of indigenous Kingsland’s house (Carriere & Day, 2012, p. 17)
Lighting and Heating
Similarly, the interior spaces were heated with open fires or stoves. Today buildings should be designed in a way that space is design to accommodate open fires during winter. Open fire has no adverse health risks, is environmentally friendly, as compared to modern electric heating or aerosol combustion which releases harmful radiation and carbon to the surrounding. Another sustainable heating and lighting method is the use of solar panels, which is a green energy and economical (Baverstock et al., 2012).
Figure 3: Design with open fire space for heating (Huang et al., 2013, p. 106).
Figure 4: Structure with solar panels for lighting (Götz, 2015, p. 29)
Structural Materials
In arid zones in Halls Creek, and other parts of the globe, traditional housing is usually constructed of heavyweight materials (Krishan, 2015). There are normally thick; earth walls will open few openings. Roof terraces and internal courtyard are often used at night as soon as the temperature cools. A number of designers have accomplished limited achievement in their attempts to adapt this model to traditional Aboriginal housing.
According to Smith (2011) studies, this layout and constructions of a conventional camp would transform to accommodate seasonal, social and personal variations. Since structures tended to be impermanent and heavyweight, they did not hinder the ability, very critical to keeping the social harmony of residents to observe what is ongoing in the surrounding. The opacity and internalized design of much arid-area housing severely inhibit widely ranging aural or visual communication.
Modern architects have attempted to moderate hindrances of climate whereas allowing the occupants to maintain aural and visual surveillance of the surrounding neighborhood. This has been attained suing passive techniques like the proper orientation of the structures, large north-facing windows, and a variety of shading selections incorporating pergolas and verandas having deciduous vines that enable winter sun to penetrate and make the house comparatively cool during summer (Hooper, 2014).
Ceilings
Active climate regulation methods comprised ceilings elevated enough to accommodate fans installation and winter heating featuring gradual combustion stoves. Highlights and windows were positioned to offer natural cross-ventilation and extra observation spots.
In general, the houses were built with concrete block walls and concrete floors. Apart from addressing climatic concerns, the use of traditional building materials and methods reduced construction budgets and minimized issues with unfamiliar and complicated detailing. In buildings that were suitably shaded and oriented, the requirement of artificial cooling and heating mechanisms was reduced the building thermal mass and solar access. The large daylight temperature range and systematic design enabled the buildings to cool down at nighttime, even during midsummer. In some case of extreme heat, numerous residents prefer to sleep on verandas (Krishan, 2015).
Appearances of Houses
Several people are astonished at the traditional looks of many houses at Halls Creek, often expected that comprehensive consultation with Aboriginal clients will come up with designs characterizing innovative appearance. Numerous Aboriginal families dwelling in the camps have inadequate experience with various housing types. They have merely seen houses where fibrous cement construction or majorities are of masonry and features pitched steel roofs. Multiple of these remains poorly oriented or designed but superficially good-looking since they are appropriately maintained and kept artificially cool together with established gardens.
Residents in Halls Creek have over the past requested that their houses be built like standard western houses. This could have resulted from the idea that standard western houses are well-suited to overcome any possible climatic issues regardless of an individual’s status in the society (Smith, 2011). They make the substantial hypothesis that if this is the ideal housing for non-indigenous individuals, then options could be poorer. Rarely do city residents feel the necessity apply the look of their households to make a proclamation regarding their identity. This could be from the fact that conventional culture is still exciting and Western structures are viewed as possessing little significance to its endurance. Several occupants often move between houses, bush and town camps. Any house can have little relevance to its inhabitants apart from a place to seek shelter from the adverse weather, safety, and helpful services (Huang et al., 2013).
Climatic Comparison with other Countries
Similar housing design in Miami (United States) and Acapulco (Mexico) can be superficially attractive, but several Halls Creek soon recognized their drawbacks and proneness to the native hash weather (Hooper, 2014). They later shifted to more conventional shelters. If Miami and Acapulco style of housing does not provide considerable advantages, it will be ignored for options that can improve better visibility and temperature control, and need minimal maintenance but do not need significant capital expenditures.
In traditional housing, colors are picked to match with the surrounding. However, the ability of a particular color to absorbed heat determined the type of color to be used. In most case, while the color was dominant as it was known to reflect away sun radiation to the house. A dark color was rarely used due to its high heat absorption property. Some natives choose a palette of colors virtually reflecting the ochers employed in conventional sand paintings. Nevertheless, bright clear colors were mostly selected (Götz, 2015).
House Technology Solutions and Detailing Concerns
In Western Australia, climate sometimes extremely hot during summer and too cold during winter (Gedik, 2014). The poor traditional housing main does not contain these problems, especially within indigenous locations. Massive electricity is gasoline produced a large volume. Natural gas is at times supplied to far areas, though it is also obtainable in gas battles. Sewerage systems contribute endless issues, frequently because of incompetent construction but at times as a result of the manner, they are utilized. Water is sourced from an underground aquifer, with quality being variable. It is usually extremely poor and features high levels of salt.
Preferably, a properly design house would offer a superior flexibility. It would adapt to varying climatic conditions v in a given period of the year (Carriere et al., 2012). Also, a good design house will adapt to the permanent residents; smaller social groups in addition to a fluctuating number of tourists. Anxiety exists between such flexibilities and the requirement to offer a stable residence that may cope with fluctuating climatic conditions, several people, minimally restricted finances, and the inhabitant's lack of acquaintance with building technology. Frequently, it is efficient to provide a variance spaces that may be utilized in different ways, instead of expectation that movable portions will be flexible and robust enough to offer the level of adjustment needed (Hooper, 2014).
Multiple houses contain solar hot-water systems using long-hours sunshine and make substantial energy savings. These kinds of systems should be carefully picked and attached. Pipes may freeze during winter, and poor quality water might obstruct pipes ultimately. Closed circuit accumulators using specially designed fluid demonstrated effectively. Pressure relief valves should be installed within sheltered areas under the eaves to prevent them from bursting and freezing. Since water may be extremely hot in summer, for enhanced safety, it may be temperature restricted. Toughened mesh screens or glass panels may be employed to aid roof-top accumulators/collectors from damage (Gedik, 2014).
References
Baverstock, G., & Paolino, S. (2012). Low energy houses in Australia: A design manual for architects & builders. Western Australia: Graphic Systems.
Carriere, D., & Day, F. (2012). Solar houses for a cold climate: An in-depth investigation of 26 solar heated homes. New York: Scribner.
Gedik, G. Z. (2014). Climatic Design: An Analysis of the Old Homes of Diyarbakir in the Southeast Region of Turkey. Architectural Science Review, 47(2), 145-154. doi:10.1080/00038628.2004.9697038
Götz, L. (2015). Climatic requirements and their attainment by building design illustrated by three dwells in the Black Forest (Federal Republic of Germany). Energy and Buildings, 7(3), 213-227. doi:10.1016/0378-7788(84)90027-6
Hooper, C. (2014). Kariobangi experimental wooden houses: User reactions, construction, kitchen designs, and climatic performance. Nairobi: University of Nairobi, Housing Research and Development Unit.
Huang, Y., & Zhang, H. (2013). Analysis of climatic condition and preliminary assessment of alternative cooling strategy for houses in California transition climate zones. doi:10.2172/130597
Krishan, A. (2015). Climate responsive architectures: A design handbook for energy efficient buildings. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Pub.
McCluney, R., & Watkins, N. L. (2016). Daylighting: Natural light for passive design. Miami, FL: Miami-Dade Community College.
Smith, P. F. (2011). Architecture in a Climate of changes: A guide to sustainable design. Oxford: Architectural Press.
Wilson, P. (2013). Seasonal sun and household orientation: Design with the sun in mind. Chattanooga, Tenn.?: Tennessee Valley Authority, Office of Power, Division of Energy Conservation and Rates.
