Reversed cooling and heating performance of modernized courtyard envelope in hot-arid climates: a case study at an educational campus

Courtyard buildings embraced as a passive design paradigm, find wide application in modulating outdoor climatic conditions and fostering energy efficiency. Consequently, exploring passive strategies to mitigate the repercussions of climate change becomes a compelling priority. However, previous studies have predominantly emphasized the daytime performance of traditional courtyards in hot climates, often overlooking their performance throughout the entire day. This oversight includes the impact of courtyards in releasing stored heat into the air during nighttime, commonly referred to as "the reversed impact of the courtyard." This study evaluates the reversed thermal impact of glazed “modernized” courtyard envelope during nighttime and day-exposed radiation. This analysis considers the complex interaction between incoming and outgoing radiation flows. The study employed a combined approach involving onsite measurements and numerical simulations centered upon an educational building within a hot-arid zone. The scope of the study encompasses diverse courtyard geometries and various mitigation strategies, all characterized by heightened proportions of glazed surface areas. The results, depending on prevailing weather conditions, reveal the potential for these factors to reduce heating time from 17 h to just 2 h at the optimum. In contrast, there is an increase in cooling impact, ranging from 7 to 22 h throughout both day and night, with scenarios representing the least and most favorable cases, respectively. For designing processes, optimizing aspect ratio without exceeding 1.6 and glazed façade orientation is essential to control multi-reflection at the modernized courtyard envelope criteria.