ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 746

4.1.1 Skycourts from the Social Perspective This section demonstrates the effectiveness of the skycourt from an environmental perspective, taking into consideration its impact on the urban settings starting from the city scal e narrowing down to the building scale. Thermal comfort, indoor environmental quality, air temperature, biodiversity, and the potential for it to be an effective passive design element in the high-rise building will be discussed. Skycourts with its greenery can be defined as an ‘environmental filter’ that can help daylight and fresh air penetrate in to the interior of the high-rise building and avoid undesirable direct solar gain (Pomeroy 2014). This potential of a skycourt influences the environment positively as a skycourt can play the role of a thermal, light and acoustic buffer / filter. There is evidence that the building which incorporates skycourts can offer a more comfortable indoor environment in terms of air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity (Ismail et al. 2011). This is not only for hot climates, but for cooler climates too, as in the case of green vertical walls (which could be a complementary part of the greenery of skycourt), which act like effective natural sunscreens (Alexandri & Jones 2008). For example, the implementation of vertical greenery can lower the temperature of its surroundings for up to 1 m away from the wall (Tan et al. 2014), which is due to the reduction of the surface temperatures behind the green layer compared to the bare facades (Perini et al. 2011). Castleton et al. (2010) found that with a green roof, the summer indoor air temperature was decreased by 2 C, and the annual energy demand was reduced by 6% (Castleton et al. 2010). Khan et al (2005) reported that the plants could improve air quality, increase pleasantness, and help improve performance (Khan et al. 2005). Moreover, Taib et al. (2013) stated that plants can enhance the thermal comfort performance and air temperature variations at the different transitional spaces such as skycourt garden, balcony garden (skyterraces) and rooftop garden (skygarden) in the high-rise building (Taib et al. 2013). Furthermore, concerning the impact on temperature, skycourts may play a role as ‘buffer’ that can reduce the impact of solar radiation and glare entering from the western facades (Jahnkassim&Ip 2006)and thus reduces solar heat gain. Skycourts, can also act as acoustic buffers between spaces and this directly improves occupants’ satisfaction and show potential to separate spaces (Pomeroy 2014). 4.1.2 Skycourts from the Environmental Perspective This section demonstrates the effectiveness of the skycourt from an environmental perspective, taking into consideration its impact on the urban settings starting from the city scale narrowing down to the building scale. Thermal comfort, indoor environmental quality, air temperature, biodiversity, and the potential for it to be an effective passive design element in the high-rise building will be discussed. Skycourts with its greenery can be defined as an ‘environmental filter’ that can help daylight and fresh air penetrate in to the interior of the high-rise building and avoid undesirable direct solar gain (Pomeroy 2014). This potential of a skycourt influences the environment positively as a skycourt can play the role of a thermal, light and acoustic buffer / filter. There is evidence that the building which incorporates skycourts can offer a more comfortable indoor environment in terms of air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity (Ismail et al. 2011). This is not only for hot climates, but for cooler climates too, as in the case of green vertical walls (which could be a complementary part of the greenery of skycourt), which act like effective natural sunscreens (Alexandri & Jones 2008). For example, the implementation of vertical greenery can lower the temperature of its surroundings for up to 1 m away from the wall (Tan et al. 2014), which is due to the reduction of the surface temperatures behind the green layer compared to the bare facades (Perini et al. 2011). Castleton et al. (2010) found that with a green roof, the summer indoor air temperature was 744 ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy