Impact of building forms on thermal performance and thermal comfort conditions in religious buildings in hot climates: a case study in Sharjah city

The common system used for thermal regulation in mosques of United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. This system increases demands on energy consumption and increases CO2 emission. A passive design approach is one of the measures to reduce these problems. This study involved an analytical examination of building forms, followed by testing the impact of these forms on its thermal performance and indoor thermal comfort. The tests were conducted using energy simulations software packages. Passive parameters such as shading devices, thermal insulation and natural ventilation were applied in six cases, including the baseline case within each form. The obtained results showed a significant effect of mosque forms as well as passive design techniques on the thermal comfort within the structures. The findings confirmed that the use of passive design alone would not help achieve thermal comfort, but reduce the annual energy consumption by10%. By integrating a hybrid air-conditioning system as another supporting approach, the annual energy consumption could be reduced by 67.5%, which allows for the designing of a much smaller HVAC system.