Climatic design influences on houses of the villages adjacent to Rice fields of Mazandaran

It is well known that climatic conditions are an influential factor on human behaviour and built environment solutions. Issues around sustainability have been critical in the emergence and development of built form and proposed models as exemplars in sustaining social cohesion. Vernacular buildings have been identified as good models for both sustainable design, locally and regionally these examples demonstrate adaption to specific conditions within natural environments and the interaction between humans’ and the environment.This paper presents the climatic influences on the formation of particular type of rural houses within the rice fields of a region in north of Iran, Mazanadaran providence. This also reveals physical responses to the specific climatic condition of the region, which locals thought, made, and adopted in order to sustainably provide climatic comfort for themselves indoors of the rural vernacular dwellings. These strategies and responses have been schematized and discussed to find out their capability in shaping a sustainable dwelling.

Keywords:

Sustainability , vernacular architecture , Climatic response , low energy building , thermal comfort