The brief
A courtyard house for 48°C summers — thermal mass, shaded water, and a majlis that opens to the garden in eleven seconds.
Site area
3,200 m²
Built area
1,150 m²
Levels
2 + roof majlis
Structure
RC frame, insulated core
Envelope
Travertine + perforated brass
Certification
LEED Gold
The constraint
Cooling load. An earlier scheme by another practice modelled at 210 kWh/m²/yr — unacceptable to the client.
What we did
Courtyard planning, 600 mm thermal mass on west elevations, evaporative water bodies, and a brass mashrabiya tuned per façade.
The result
Modelled load down to 78 kWh/m²/yr. Measured first-year performance came in at 71.
Cooling strategy
The previous scheme lost because it treated cooling as a plant problem. We treated it as a plan problem. The house is organised around a courtyard, so every habitable room has two exposures and none faces west without shade.
Façade
The brass mashrabiya is not decorative. Each of the four elevations carries a different aperture ratio, tuned to its own solar exposure and resolved as a single family of patterns so the building still reads as one object.
600 mm thermal mass to west elevations
Evaporative water bodies in the courtyard
Measured first-year load: 71 kWh/m²/yr
The brief
A courtyard house for 48°C summers — thermal mass, shaded water, and a majlis that opens to the garden in eleven seconds.
Site area
3,200 m²
Built area
1,150 m²
Levels
2 + roof majlis
Structure
RC frame, insulated core
Envelope
Travertine + perforated brass
Certification
LEED Gold
The constraint
Cooling load. An earlier scheme by another practice modelled at 210 kWh/m²/yr — unacceptable to the client.
What we did
Courtyard planning, 600 mm thermal mass on west elevations, evaporative water bodies, and a brass mashrabiya tuned per façade.
The result
Modelled load down to 78 kWh/m²/yr. Measured first-year performance came in at 71.
Cooling strategy
The previous scheme lost because it treated cooling as a plant problem. We treated it as a plan problem. The house is organised around a courtyard, so every habitable room has two exposures and none faces west without shade.
Façade
The brass mashrabiya is not decorative. Each of the four elevations carries a different aperture ratio, tuned to its own solar exposure and resolved as a single family of patterns so the building still reads as one object.
600 mm thermal mass to west elevations
Evaporative water bodies in the courtyard
Measured first-year load: 71 kWh/m²/yr