Indian real estate is trying to find
appropriate solutions to provide thermally comfortable dwellings using passive
design strategies. Historically, a big part of architectural teaching has been
focused on learning about climate responsive strategies from vernacular
buildings. However, such knowledge sharing was based on observational studies
as opposed to long-term scientific field studies with quantitative outcomes. The
authors believe rigorous scientific enquiry is required to understand the performance
of vernacular dwellings in order to encourage the use of climate responsive
strategies. This study looks at the vernacular dwellings, called pol houses, as
well as the contemporary dwellings to assess their thermal comfort performance.
Indoor environmental conditions in these houses were monitored hourly for a year.
Outdoor conditions were also recorded using a weather station simultaneously. Selected
dwellings were compared to the basis of area, occupancy and socio-economic
background. Thermal performance of these houses was evaluated against two models
– the India Model for Adaptive Comfort (IMAC) and the ASHRAE Standard-55
adaptive model.