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Summer Comfort Temperature in the Public Historic Buildings in the Old City of Tartous in Syria

Maya Hassan 1,2, Hui Xie 1,2, and Mirna Hassan 3
1. Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
2. Key Laboratory of New Technology for Construction of Cities in Mountain Area, Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
3. The Engineering section in the Department of Antiquities in Tartous, Syria

Abstract—Adaptive comfort survey data are not available for Syria. This paper is a thermal comfort study of the heritage buildings in the old city of Tartous in Syria. The selected historic structures were reused for public functions. Two of the survey locations are used as workplaces, the third is a multifunctional gallery, and the last is a print shop. The building elements, materials, and drawings were documented and described. Field measurements in the four public locations were continuously collected for seven days in August 2016 in conjunction with a subjective thermal survey in the office buildings. The sample size of the office questionnaires was 70 subjects, which is 80% of the total number of employees in both selected office buildings. The indoor climates of the surveyed buildings and the employees' satisfaction have been described and analyzed. Thermal comfort indices, a comfort band, and a predicted neutral temperature were determined and compared with the international standards. The primary objective of this thermal research was to evaluate whether the environments in the historic buildings are comfortable for the occupants. The results could be useful for further studies and could be used as a dataset for establishing a local thermal comfort standard. 

Index Terms—Thermal comfort, neutral temperature, heritage buildings, Tartous

Cite: Maya Hassan, Hui Xie, and Mirna Hassan, "Summer Comfort Temperature in the Public Historic Buildings in the Old City of Tartous in Syria," International Journal of Structural and Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 378-389, November 2018. doi: 10.18178/ijscer.7.4.378-389