BACKGROUND
At 400 meters below sea level, the Jordan Valley is the lowest piece of land in the world. Its climate is very dry with an average rainfall of 150 millimeters a year, most of which comes in 2 or 3 mid-winter events. Summers are very hot with day time temperatures often reaching 50 centigrade with hot nights often over 25 centigrade. Winters are warm with no frost.
To achieve a healthy population it is unlikely that ordinary people will be able to afford full nutrition if gardens are not plentiful throughout the local settlements.
The house is an integral part of achieving a plentiful and productive garden design. It should be comfortable to live in, make efficient use of energy, and be inexpensive to operate. There are generalizations that can be made, but the essential design features required for a house in the Jordan Valley to perform efficiently in a passive way are quite specific.
In general:
• No Jordan Valley house should be planned or built without its integral trellis and garden, as these may not only save most or all energy usage and cost of air conditioning, but also provide food and shelter. The attached shade house in particular must be planned as integral to the house design and in fact, as the summer living area and kitchen. For this reason, the winter kitchen or indoor kitchen must open onto the shade house summer kitchen.
• The house itself needs to be elongated east to west so that the shade that is cast on the north side is long and the heat gain on the west wall is small. While still permitting the low winter sun to enter the rooms through the south side windows, it is the roof overhang that excludes the summer sun from hitting the walls and windows.
• The whole roof area should be completely shaded with a thick vine trellis, when ever possible. This insulates the roof, greatly reducing the heat gain of the house, making it cooler and more comfortable to live in. It also greatly increases the usable area of the house as the roof, once fully shaded, will become a very comfortable area open to breezes. Roofs have been traditionally used in many cultures for multiple uses.
• Down drafts can be created with sails, slats, wind scoops and wind chimneys on roof areas, either fixed or self steering to force a down flow of the constant or prevailing winds. At their outlets in rooms, these down draft inlets can be fitted with damp hessian, damp trays of charcoal or unglazed pots full of water. These add considerable cooling capacity to the air and humidify the air inside the house.
• Houses can be constructed so that they assist other houses, placed close together with the long axis of their street east west. A common or close-spaced wall ensures that neither wind nor heat can easily penetrate the settlement. If all houses are sun facing and of more than one storey in height, cool air in shaded narrow streets and courtyards is always available and vents at roof level will draw cool air into the rooms of the houses. The bottom floors and flat roofs are used for living and the upper floors and roof areas are for bedrooms.
More specifically:
West Side
• No windows on the west facing wall of the house
• The west facing wall should be painted white to reflect the late afternoon sun
• If possible the west-facing wall should also be fully shaded with a deciduous vine trellis such as grapes, which will lose their leaves in winter and allow some extra light in during the cooler time of year
Posted in General by Administrator on the September 13th, 2005 at PRI. Written by
.
read more at PRI
