Bioclimatic Devices of Nasrid Domestic Buildings Luis José GARCÍA-PULIDO studies in ARCHITECTURE, HISTORY & CULTURE papers by the 2011-2012 AKPIA@MIT visiting fellows AKPIA@MIT 2 The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3 2011-2012 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 6.1.A.1. Control of Spaces and Natural Light 6.1.A.2. Reflecting Surfaces 2. CLIMATIC CHANGES IN THE PAST AND THEIR INFLUENCES 6.1.A.3. North-South Orientation 6.1.A.4. Microclimate Provided by Courtyards IN SOCIETIES 6.1.A.5. Spatial Dispositions around the Courtyard. The 2.1. The Roman Climatic Optimum Sequence Patio-Portico-Qubba/Tower 2.2. The Early Medieval Pessimum 6.1.B. Indirect Methods of Passive Refrigeration (Heat 2.3. The Medieval Warm Period Dissipation) 2.4. The Little Ice Age 6.1.B.1. Ventilation 6.1.B.2. Radiation 6.1.B.3. Evaporation and Evapotranspiration 3. BUILDING AGAINST A HARSH CLIMATE IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD 7. BIOCLIMATIC DEVICES IN OTHER ISLAMIC REGIONS 3.1. Orientation and Flexibility WITH COMPARABLE CLIMATOLOGY TO THE SOUTHEAST 3.2. Shading IBERIAN PENINSULA 3.3. Ventilation 7.1 The North West of Maghreb 7.1.1. The Courtyard House in the Medinas of North Maghreb 4. COURTYARD HOUSES 7.2 The Anatolian Peninsula 4.1. The Sequence from the Outside to the Courtyard 7.2.1. Mediterranean Continental Climate 4.2. Taming the Climate 7.2.2. Mediterranean Marine Climate 7.2.3. Mediterranean Mountainous Climate 5. NASRID HOUSE TYPOLOGY 7.2.4. Dry and Hot Climate 7.2.5. Courtyard Houses in Anatolia 6. BIOCLIMATIC DEVICES OF NASRID ARCHITECTURE 6.1. Natural Refrigeration 8. CONCLUSION 6.1.A. Direct Methods of Active Refrigeration (Heat Prevention) 9. BIBLIOGRAPHY Luis José García-Pulido Bioclimatic Devices of Nasrid Domestic Buildings AKPIA@MIT 4 The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5 2011-2012 1. INTRODUCTION Islamic civilization quickly to keep out the strong, dry winds or sedentary, including their developed into a widespread, of the desert. The narrow alleys customs and institutions, in terms Islamic society absorbed the predominantly urban culture. kept out the direct sunlight from of their “physical environment- influence of all the cultural areas The community grouping was the buildings, with their close habitat, climate, soil, food, and wherever it became established. often constituted as a defense proximity providing additional the different ways in which they In the Mediterranean Basin there against potential enemies, and protection. In addition, the massive are forced to satisfy their needs was the influence of the Greco- particularly against challenging, constructions with earth, adobe, and obtain a living” (Gates, 1967: Roman world using square or which tended to be hostile in the bricks or stone walls helped to 415-422). rectangular courtyards with areas of expansion of the Islamic maintain the necessary coolness arcades on all four sides. On World, including the south of the and humidity during the hottest In his Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldūm the other hand, in the Middle Iberian Peninsula, although such hours of the day (Image 1.1). stresses the task of architecture East, they adapted the Persian conditions were less harsh in the to control the environment: “The Sassanid, Babylonian and territories of al-Andalus. The Tunisian Muslim historian craft of architecture is the first Egyptian traditions. Ibn Khaldūn1 wrote in 1377 his and oldest craft of sedentary The cities had to be compact Muqaddimah or the Prolegomena, civilization. It is the knowledge In spite of its nomadic origins, and their public spaces narrow which records an early view of of how to go about using houses universal history. The Muqaddimah and mansions for cover and anticipated the meteorological shelter. This is because man climate theory of environmental has the natural disposition to determinism, later proposed by reflect upon the outcome of Montesquieu in the 18th century. things. Thus, it is unavoidable Ibn Khaldūn studied “the physical that he must reflect upon how to environment in which man lives avert the harm arising from heat in order to understand how it and cold by using houses which influences him in his non-physical have walls and roofs to intervene characteristics.” He explained between him and those things on the differences between different all sides.” peoples, whether nomadic Between the 10th and 14th centuries, spanning the late Middle Ages, there was a well- 1 Ibn Khaldūn lived in Granada during the kingdom documented warm period in of Muhammad V after he had recovered the throne following his exile in Fez. In 1364 he was entrusted North Atlantic regions, called with a diplomatic mission to the King of Castile, the Medieval Warm Period or Pedro the Cruel, to endorse a peace treaty. In Granada, Ibn Khaldūn quickly came into compe- Medieval Climate Optimum. tition with Muhammad’s vizier, Ibn al-Khatib. His Therefore, the bioclimatic machinations resulted eventually in Ibn Khaldūn Image 1.1. Aerial view of Marrakesh, Morocco (ca. 1993). © Yann Arthus-Bertrand/CORBIS. sending him back to North Africa. aspects in the dwellings of al- Luis José García-Pulido Bioclimatic Devices of Nasrid Domestic Buildings AKPIA@MIT 6 The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 7 2011-2012 Andalus were developed in order The climate became warmer 62). The fact that passes over the the conditions of the climatic to obtain natural refrigeration. at the end of THE 1st century Alps were clear all year round optimum, possibly as a result of To a lesser degree, also specific BC. Temperatures were then made it easier to conquer and major demographic growth in mechanisms are also noticed in probably similar to those today control the transalpine provinces the north. The great migration these buildings to protect against (Schönwiese, 1995: 91). of Gallia, Belgica, Germania, period was triggered in AD 375 the cold, especially in the last Raetia and Noricum. This great when the Huns broke out of the Nasrid period (14th and 15th Whereas Carthage, the expansion coincided with a quite Asian steppes, and precipitated centuries) and mainly, in Morisco great power of the southern warm but not excessively dry the westward migration of the times (16th century), when a Mediterranean Sea, reached its period, which is known in climate Germanic tribes (Behringer, 2007: colder period known as Little Ice high point during the early colder history as the Roman Climatic 62-64). Age was developing. phase, Rome had its golden age Optimum (Zolitschka et al., 2003: after the warming began, when 98). This warming lasted from the This early medieval cooler period the political center of gravity had 1st century AD until approximately developed from AD 450 to 750, 2. CLIMATIC CHANGES IN THE shifted to the northern side of the the 5th century. During this age, and there are indications that in PAST AND THEIR INFLUENCES Mediterranean. Rome initially more people lived on our planet central England a lasting rise in ON SOCIETIES expanded southward and struck than at any time before. This level temperatures, by 1 to 2ºC, did out north only after the warming would be reached again only a not begin until around the year 2.1. The Roman Climatic had begun (Behringer, 2007: 61- thousand years later, during the 1000 (Schönwiese, 1995: 81-6 Optimum warm period of the High Middle passim). The early Middle Ages Ages. were a time of extreme insecurity The last Iron Age, characterized in Europe: the population level by wet and cool summers and The ancient climate optimum fell to a low that was never again mild rainy winters, lasted roughly favored the creation of other reached at any later period. through the whole period of the empires through the Middle East Roman Kings and the Republic to East Asia. The Han dynasty In northern, western and central (Image 2.1). The water table was (202 BC to AD 220) flourished in Europe as well as in the northern probably higher than it is today, China at almost exactly the same Mediterranean regions, the cold and so North Africa could become time as the Roman Empire. was mainly associated with the granary of the Roman Empire wetter conditions. On the other (Lauer and Bendix, 2004: 287). 2.2. The Early Medieval hand, in parts of Asia, the Near Pessimum East and North Africa there Image 2.1. Hypothesis of the climate balance persisted a greater aridity, and in the first IPCC report (1990). Variations Harsh climatic factors also Rome’s traditional granary dried between cold and warm periods in the last contributed to the crises in the up (Lamb, 1982: 149, 159f). In 12,000 years. Adapted from: IPCC Report Roman Empire. The migration southern Italy, Greece, Anatolia 1990; C. K. Folland et al., “Observed Climate Variations and Change” (in: Houghton, 1990: of the Germanic people over the and Palestine, people moved to 195-238). territory of Rome began under the coasts and left the hinterland Luis José García-Pulido Bioclimatic Devices of Nasrid Domestic Buildings AKPIA@MIT 8 The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 9 2011-2012 largely uninhabited. This was the in Europe and North America but at this time the water irrigation not as commonly as in the Little period when great cities went all around the world (Grove and system of Granada dating from Ice Age. The warm, often dry into decline: Ephesus, Antioch Switsur, 1994: 143-69). the 11th-12th centuries had to be autumnal weather in the second and Palmyra in Asia Minor. Some improved by the Nasrid dynasty. half of the 13th century features in six hundred settlements were Lamb’s original estimate was of relatively few reports.