assessment of thermal comfort in vernacular buildings in the cold and mountainous region (case s‌tudy: hamadan, iran)

The vernacular architecture of cities with old civilizations like hamadan, located in a cold and mountainous area, s tems from centuries of optimizing material use, cons truction techniques, climate considerations, and the leas t use of fossil fuels to provide residents comfort. this region represents a specific type of dwelling that is a spectacular example of its climate conditions and compatible with its surrounding environment. this s tudy aims to inves tigate the geometric conformation of hamedan houses and elicit the proper sugges tions to provide comfort conditions. to reach these goals, 15 houses located in the old dis tricts of hamadan belonging to three different his torical eras were selected. then, according to mahoney's table, evan's index, pen warden graph, and climate consultant software thermal comfort factors were assessed and calculated to compare elicited design s trategies with typology. these attributes to architectural s trategies for this region like southeas tern orientation, medium-sized windows, thick outdoor and indoor walls, thick insulation with sufficient temporary heating equipment, the high heat capacity of materials, compact urban texture and planning, protection agains t intensive wind aimed to provide comfort conditions. then these methods were compared whit three eras' houses to illus trate how much compatibility was there practically, which eventually reduced in each of them.