Climate House

Nasser Golzari's research concerns how advances in building materials and technology can be used to design and construct low energy buildings which are a sustainable response to cultural, climatic and other site-specific factors. The issues addressed are long term maintainability and addressing sustainability via the everyday cultural routines of the buildings’ users. Golzari was invited to research and design an exemplary prototype low-energy house for a selected site in Tehran. The work was funded by the Iranian Fuel Conservation Organisation. Drawing on research on low-energy housing in the UK and elsewhere, Golzari collaborated with an expert in low energy (Professor Wilson, London Metropolitan) and in sustainable architecture (Professor Sue Roaf, Oxford Brookes and the architectural practice Pierre d’Avoine, developing the ideas for the Climate House through a series of study visits made to Tehran.

The novel features of the design are the combination of contemporary technology with local cultural habits to develop a climatic response, the underlying concept being temperature stabilisation. The design uses modern technology and materials providing an alternative approach to long term maintainability than that proposed by (say) the low-technology mud-brick solutions of Hassan Fathy.

The novel technical features of the design were tested through building models for sun and shade studies and wind tunnel tests. Roofing materials and components of the design such as the cooling shower tower were tested in trials in Norway, Spain and Australia. The design provides cooling without air conditioning (in Tehran almost all buildings rely on high-energy air-conditioning); instead it uses the traditional north south courtyard to cool the building naturally. The construction techniques proposed have informed regulations for building construction in the Tehran area. The design has been featured in architectural publications, at conferences, and is used by students working in the field of sustainability and architectural identity.