Conceptualising Air Movements Created by Change in Pressure - Persian Badgir as Case Study

Abstract

Buildings in different regions are constructed according to the specific local climatic conditions. In the past, without modern facilities, it was only the ‘Intelligent Archi-tecture’ of natural cooling of the buildings that enabled people to tolerate the hot summer. Some traditional architecture are like Badgirs in Iran, Manghs in Pakistan, step-wells in Gujarat and Rajasthan, courtyards in Jaisalmer, and many more. Amongst these, Badgir – Persian Wind Tower (Iranian Architecture) is one of the most intelligent arrangements that exploits natural energy from wind, and provides cool comfort in hot region. This paper focuses on how do these different types of wind towers use the pressure differences to ventilate the indoors to keep them cool. How and what is the movement of air in these buildings with wind towers varying in their form, shape, size, proportion, location and orientation? How are these wind tower sable to tackle the changing wind direction? To solve these queries, a series of experiments are carried out to understand movement of air.