Thinking Ecology for Architecture: Exploration of Cool Pocket

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of understanding the ecology as part of architectural education. Rather than focusing on the heat phenomenon as frequently researched, this paper explores the opposite ideas by identifying the concept of cool pocket and designing it as a mean for heat mitigation in a tropical built environment. Recent researches show that providing a microclimate that responds human thermal comfort can contribute to the building energy performance and at the same time promote activities in outdoor space. The relation and interaction among various microclimate factors with the land, water body, arrangement of vegetations, building’s geometry and configurations, create different scenarios of the thermal condition, including possible cool pocket. Using air temperature and wind as indicators, possibilities of cool pocket will be explored and investigated through CFD Simulation. The result shows the importance of ecological understanding as part of designing cool pocket in a tropical context in a learning process and scenario-based simulation in developing design strategies.