Architectural Development of Courtyard Compact Houses for Bangkok Metropolitan

Driven by capitalism and the growth of urbanization, today’s dwelling space is decreasing due to limitedplot of affordable land. “The Courtyard Compact House” has become one of the alternative solutions for residentialarchitecture for urban context in tropical regions. Its plan configuration has been integrated between thecontemporary notion of compact house and the former idea of courtyard house. This research was to investigatethe architectural development of Courtyard Compact House in terms of history and concept, and to analyze theการพัฒนารูปแบบทางสถาปัตยกรรมบ้านเดี่ยวขนาดย่อมแบบเปิดคอร์ทโล่งสำ�หรับกรุงเทพมหานครArchitectural Development of Courtyard Compact Houses for BangkokMetropolitanศรีศักดิ์ พัฒนวศินSrisak Phattanawasinคณะสถาปัตยกรรมศาสตร์และการผังเมือง มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์ จังหวัดปทุมธานี 12121Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University, Pathumthani, 12121, ThailandE-mail: sriza1411@yahoo.com28 JARS 10(1). 2013efficiency in planning design reflecting the social and environmental dimensions. Two main issues wereconducted in case studies of Courtyard Compact House in Bangkok, one was to explore a privacy and socialinteraction by using Space Syntax, and the other was to analyze the energy saving, i.e., a natural ventilation,and insolation capacity as well as a gaining daylight efficiency by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD),and ECOTECT stimulation, respectively. The results showed that the planning of Courtyard Compact Houseencouraged the social interactions of family members in the open courtyard area, especially the courtyard withmain crossing paths. Furthermore, the Courtyard Compact House had the advantages of energy saving fromnatural ventilation design, solar radiation protection, and daylighting design of building which depended oncourtyard orientation, courtyard proportion, ratio between building height and courtyard width, as well as wallopening. The Courtyard Compact House could be therefore considered as an alternative residential architecturefor urban context due to its efficiency in both social and environmental dimensions which play an important rolein the development of tropical sustainable architecture today.