Sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, building environments, and services that comply with the principles of social, economic and ecological sustainability (Lombard, L.P et al., 2008). The idea of courtyards as a method of plan configuration goes back to thousands of years to Neolithic settlements. In the beginning, the logic behind this configuration was mainly to provide a shelter against outside forces, such as invasions by humans and wild animals. Over time, it developed into a solid, logical configuration that not only maximizes the built-up area in the urban context but also allows controlling sunlight penetration, especially in regions where it is abundant. However, it soon became a generic typology in hot, arid, climatic landscapes and therefore formed the basis of the urban patterns of the Madina's in the Islamic World. Furthermore, the cultural relevance of this plan's typology is of high importance (P. Torcellini et al., 2006). A preliminary study output was performed prior to this research to analyze various physical elements of traditional courtyard houses located in a hot, arid region in Egypt. This paper presents a research project carried out to explore the potentials of traditional Islamic courthouses and to develop them into zero energy consumption houses that suits the Egyptian contemporary lifestyle. Wide and vast studies were conducted to investigate the passive aspects of the traditional Islamic houses in Egypt and to analyze their architectural vocabulary responsible for creating a passive contemporary sustainable house. Then by developing these elements, using environmental analysis of energy consumption calculations and CFD simulations, a contemporary prototype house was proposed as a development of the traditional Islamic houses that were built in middle Ages in Middle East.
Re-Thinking Courtyard Housing: Development of Traditional Islamic Courthouses into Zero-Energy Buildings.