Enhancing Natural Ventilation Through Massing: New Possibilities for Turkish Mass Housing

Abstract

Urban growth and economic policies in Turkey have produced structural alterations in the housing dynamics. Currently, the Turkish Mass Housing Administration (TOKI) solves the residential deficit through large-scale high-rise proposals. Although reaching more, these developments are characterized by a low users’ satisfaction: overheated units during the hot period of the year challenge thermal comfort of people. The TOKI projects are indistinctive to climates where they are built. In hot and dry regions, the “residential tower” relies on a low window-to-wall ratio (WWR) to minimize heat gains in summer. The repetition of this model makes residential projects lacking functional diversity, while limits the possibility of different unit size and usage of local natural forces. As a traditional strategy, passive cooling has been used to balance indoor and outdoor environments. Historically, communal courtyard buildings known as “karavanserais” have displayed the relationship between openings and the building mass to make wind the main climatic regulator. This paper investigates the typical flow regimes through a case study: a TOKI project in Gaziantep. Located in the southeastern part of the Anatolian peninsula, hot and dry conditions of this city and its influence on a 12-story residential project are simulated in IES-VE. By using the MicroFlo analysis tool, this modeling is compared to a proposed typology that takes advantage of convection from the prevailing winds via external simulations. Besides using envelope design parameters and massing configuration to improve indoor conditions of units, this typology also brings new spatial alternatives for the limited conditions that represent living in a public high-rise housing in Turkey. It is observed that building orientation according to prevailing wind direction increases the potential of natural ventilation. Channeling and diverting effects were seen in different building patterns. Behavior of wind in different width-height aspect ratios were compared with the literature.