Asian architecture report

Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract.......................................................................................................................... 2 1.0

Introduction.....................................................................................................3

1.1

Overview of Sekeping Serendah Forest Retreat Sheds ..............................3

1.2

Tropical climate ……………………………………………………………………3

1.3

Thermal Comfort..........................................................................................3

1.4

Research Question......................................................................................4

2.0 Passive Design Strategies ...................................................................................5 2.1

Three basic tiers in building sustainable design……………………………….5

2.2

Principles and significance of Passive Design Strategied………………...….6

3.0 Passive Design Strategies adopted by Sekeping Serendah................................6 3.1

Building Orientation ……………………………………………………………...6

3.2

Building Design and Envelope ………………....…………………………….…8 3.2 .1 Croos- ventilation………………………..………………………...……….8 3. 2.2 Infusion of Malay Vernacular Architecture……………………………..10 3.2.3 Floadting Roof Design…………………………………….………………13

3.3 The choice of building Materials Used……………………………………….….14 4.0 Conclusion..........................................................................................................16 6.0 References............................................................................................................17

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Abstract The purpose of doing a study on the passive design strategy of the retreat in Sekeping Serendah is to identify actually how effective is the passive design strategies applied in the respective sheds in Malaysia’s tropical climate.

In terms of Sekeping Serendah is located in a tropical forest, it is a good example to study the suitability of the concept of Sekeping Serendah and how it fully make use of its surrounding context to achieve the best result in giving the visitors to experience the forest and integrated closely with nature. Actually, thermal comfort is very important for the users to retreat because it will make them in satisfy and pleasant feeling in the shed. Therefore, Sekeping Serendah had used some passive design strategies to achieve the thermal comfort in saving the source of energy within the natural factor of local climate. We can obtain the Information of Sekeping Serendah and the passive design strategies from many sources such as their official website, site visit, online newspaper and the reviews from the website to assist for this research study. Passive design is a method that without using any mechanical system but still can be achieving thermal comfort. In the Sekeping Serendah, three major passive design strategies are applied to minimize the heat gain issue, they are building orientation, building layout, and the choice of building materials. One of the significant of retreat in Sekeping Serendah is openness, there have a lot of openings that are located at the all sides and every direction of the sheds to achieve the efficiency of natural ventilation. The architect of Sekeping Serendah designed well the ventilation and shading of the sheds to achieve thermal comfort in terms of the advantages of the site context in Sekeping Serendah. In addition, orientation of the building are let the effect of the stack and cross ventilation within the building to increase the air velocity. Sekeping Serendah has the interesting choice of materials used in different kind of sheds which is the glass merge with steel, mud with glass and the timber with steel. All of the partnership of these materials are used in mutual complementation of each other’s demerit. Hence, it has come to a conclusion that the passive design strategies that are adopted in the sheds of Sekeping Serendah are applied well to achieve thermal comfort with the heat gain while maintaining the openness design concept in this local climate condition.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Introduction 1.1 Overview of Sekeping Serendah Forest Retreat Sheds Sekeping Serendah is a private retreat that integrate with its surrounding environment and minimize its impact on the surrounding area. The concept of transparency and openness sheds is to give visitor about the experience of the beauty of the natural environment surrounding on them. The sheds are kept basic and provide a basic shelter for users to commune with the forest. Therefore, it is such a modern shelter and extension of the nearer Orang Asli huts. Orang Asli huts are built sparsely, sitting lightly on the ground and seem as the temporary dwellings for shelter in the inclement weather. Sekeping Serendah is located in the forest, but it has the good concept and amply utilize its site context to achieve a best results be a retreat. Sekeping Serendah consists of 10 sheds set in 5 care of tropical rainforest. The sheds in Sekeping Serendah are divided into three types which is glass shed, timber shed and mud sheds. In this report, we are going to see how the architect of Sekeping serendah used its site context, ventilation, shading and any others passive design strategies to achieve thermal comfort in Malaysia this hot and humid climate area.

1.2 Tropical Climate Malaysia is one of the typical equatorial region which let the people experience warm and high humidity climate throughout the year. Furthermore Malaysia’s climate is experiences two-monsoon season which is northeast monsoon, southwest monsoon and the rainy seasons every year. The typical weather of Malaysia is generally hot and sunny.

1.3 Thermal comfort What is thermal comfort? It describes the state of mind of a person in terms of if they feel either too cold or too hot in their own individual perspective. There are two factors can be affect user’s thermal comfort which is personal factors and environmental factor.

Thermal comfort level is different for each person as it is depended on how the metabolic rate and the clothing level of each individual. For the environmental factor, it can be affected the thermal comfort level by the air temperature, air movement, relative humidity and radiant temperature.

The environmental factors about the humidity, air temperature, air velocity and solar radiation are integrated together. In despite of the relatively high air temperature, there ARC 2213/2234 Asian Architecture

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah. is still generally high of relative humidity in Malaysia’s this kind of tropical climate. High air temperature, solar radiation and the relative humidity will impact the thermal comfort of the users. In the case of retreat sheds of Sekeping Serendah, the issue of solar radiation is controlled by the sufficient shading of dense forest trees on the Sekeping Serendah its site. In addition, the problem of heat gain in the building is also handled by the used of passive design features and some vernacular architecture approach to minimize the heat gain. However, the building envelope is very important to regulate heat transfer of the building as well, so the materials used of the shed has to be considered carefully in this hot climate condition. The things that have to be investigated is the thermal properties of materials because the different kind of the materials have their own specific heat transfer value and their significant role in used of design.

1.4 Research Questions This paper wiil investigate on effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah by responding to the following research questions: Question 1: What is passive design strategy?

Question 2: What are passive design strategies adopted by Sekeping serendah in the local climate.

Question 3: What are the effect of orientation and open layout of the sheds in Sekeping Serendah to contribute to thermal comfort?

Question 4: How the passive design strategies with the vernacular architecture design in Sekeping Serendah ?

Question 5: How the materials are implemented in passive design strategy of Sekeping Serendah in achieving thermal comfort?

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

1.0

Passive Design Strategies 1.1

Three basic tiers in building sustainable design

Figure 1 3 tiers of passive design approach

3 of the basic tiers in building sustainable design approach are form in the pyramidal. The lowest tier which is the most fundamental design approaches in the building sustainable design is the basic building design. Basic building design focuses on the surface to volume ratio, insulation, colour used on exterior, landscaping, materials used, window and so on to reduce heat gains in a building. Moreover, the second tier of the pyramid in the diagram is the passive design system. This passive design system is a series design strategies that can be enhance thermal performance of the building without using any energy. Passive design helps to minimal the cost of used in a building and allows to cool the buildings itself. On the other hand, the mechanical system is the last approach to cover the remaining issues of the building so it is placed on the top tier of the pyramid.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

1.2

Principles and significance of Passive Design Strategies Passive Design is a design method which is based on climate considerations.

It attempts to control thermal comfort which is heating and cooling of a building without any energy. In the tropical climate, the basic passive design strategies are the orientation of the building, the form of the building, sun shading devices and materials of used to regulate the heat gain in the building. In the tropical environment, solar radiation can contribute more than 90% of total heat gain.

Therefore, it is important to adopt passive design strategies in a building of Malaysia with this kind of tropical climate to achieve the thermal comfort for user needs. Most of the passive design buildings are need the active of user to achieve the efficiency of thermal comfort. For example, users have to control the non-automated louvers or open and close the window to allow the building to be well ventilated and control the effects of the sun in the interior of the building. Those kind of activities will change the efficiency on controlling thermal comfort.

The 3 major passive design strategies are adopted in the sheds of Sekeping Serendah retreat is the placement and orientation of the building, building design and envelope, and the choice of the materials used. These strategies are used to solve the heat gain issue of the shed while minimal the visual boundary between the interior and exterior environment to reach the nature driven design.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

3.0 Passive Design Strategies adopted by Sekeping Serendah 3.1 Building Orientation and Placement

Figure 2 location of Sekeping Serendah Shed and the Monnsoon Direction

Building orientation are very important in the building design process. This is because the orientation of a building must consider about the local climate, the feature of the landscape and sun orientation of the site first, then we only can make the decision of the orientation of a building. In the study, the ideal building orientation is the main long axis of the building is better to face North and South directions where the smaller facades are to be face East and West directions. As the East and West is the direction of the sunrise and sunset. If this orientation placement method can be apply in the building, it will decrease the surface area of building exposure by the direct sunlight.

The Sheds of Sekeping Serendah are located at the Rawang where it is a tropical forest. The dense of trees and forest canopies are the living awnings because they are able sufficiently shading the sheds. Therefore, the sheds of Sekeping Serendah will be able to obviate sun expose to the building directly and bathe in this warmth sunlight with this good nature shading devices. After this consideration of building orientation placement in the site, heat gain will be greatly reduced and it will be achieving the thermal comfort of user. Moreover, the location of each sheds in Sekeping Serendah are particularly planned and carefully avoid the direct views from the neighbour sheds and the public pathways in the forest. In this kind of scruple and consideration, the shed are successfully placed with openness and transparency design which the concept of making the building merge with the nature while ensuring the maximum privacy of the user.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Figure 3 The dense canopy of the forest provide sufficient shading to the glass house

For example, the glass shed in Sekeping Serendah is mainly covered by the so-called transparent glass. In this case, the largest surface area of the glass faced and the terrace of the Glass Shed is placed at the location that avoiding East and West direction of the sun exposure. This method is used for avoid the glass faรงade and the terrace from the exposed by sun directly because these area are the place that vulnerable as heat gather quickly. In addition, the louvers are also applied in the sheds designs to provide enough and plentiful warm shading from sun and avoid the drenching interior from the heavy rain. Therefore, Sekeping Serendah is achieving thermal comfort by using the advantages of the existing site condition.

N

Figure 4 showing the map diagram of the Glass Sheds and the blue highlight area is the place of terrace of glass shed.

From the above picture are showing the glass facades and the terraces of the glass sheds. From the observation, we can see the glass facades of the glass shed are really orientated towards the South direction and avoiding the East and West. However, the glass shed is drenched properly with the befitting sunlight.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

3.2 Building design and Envelope 3.2.1 Cross- Ventilation

Figure 5 Sectional view of Glass Shed, Sekeping Serendah

3.2.1 Cross- Ventilation All the sheds of Sekeping Serendah are in the openness and transparency of the design intention. It was like create a feeling of without boundary between the interior and exterior environment. This concept is to let the users to be connected with the surrounding in this tropical rain forest and intendedly make the building merge with the nature. One of the most prominent and significance features of the sheds is the open plan layout design with the good fenestrations on every sides of the sheds. In this open plan design with none of the wall as the obstruction to make the air circulate around the shed for the wind flow. The open plan diagram of the sheds is observed as below.

Figure 6 Open layout design

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Figure 7 Open interior space with minimal partition allow good ventilation in the house.

Figure 8 Opening of the glass shed

Figure 9 Louvers and opening on all sides of the Timber Shed

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

The meaning of natural ventilation is using the outside natural air movement to passively cool in to the interior space of a building. Passive ventilation is very important because it can help to move the fresh air without using any fans. Therefore, in this warm and hot climates of Malaysia, it help a building’s cooling without using the mechanical air-con. In Sekeping Serendah, it design the cross-ventilation system by facilitating in the used of open plan design with a lot of the openings on all the side of the sheds. The prevailing wind enter to the internal spaces from one side of the shed.

The wind pass through the internal spaces for cooling the interior and decrease the temperature of the interior then it will exits to the opposite direction of the openings.

Therefore, the interior will be get cooler and windy when apply this technique to let the air exchange in the spaces and reduce the heat gain efficiently during the day time.

3.2.2 Infusion of Malay Vernacular Architecture Vernacular architecture is a building with a simplest form and it is actually a piece of architecture without architects and the building which is constructed and built to address the human needs in the specific society. This societies usually is formed from the natives and locals of the land because they were interaction closely with the nature and the surroundings. They build the building by using the local materials so it was expresses the culture of the local people and the area of the site. The Malay Vernacular Architecture are design with the tropical climate, usability, sociological and aesthetics need of the locals to make it built perfectly to suit with site context.

Vernacular architecture design is also built to reflect the social ethnicity and identity, heritage and cultural of the particular society.

Traditional Malay Vernacular Architecture is affected by the climate as it has the design to build to subdue the Malaysia’s tropical climatic issues. It is constructed by the local materials such as timber, mud, tree roots, rattan and Nipah leaves. Malay vernacular house is sturdy enough even though it is a lightweight building design structure. It is the reflection of the social identity of the local. Therefore, Sekeping Serendah was influenced by the Malay Vernacular Architecture and updating these technique as the features of Sekeping Serendah retreat shed. Some of the principle of vernacular architecture feature such as the pitched roofs, big opening timber stilt to elevated the building and so on.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Figure 10 The principles of a vernacular design.

One of the vernacular Malay house is the large roof overhangs to provide the shading against sun and rain. For example, the Mud and timber sheds of Sekeping Serendah retreat are designed the large overhangs roof with the covered material, veranda.

Therefore, the shed is able to be shaded by the large and deep overhang roof from being exposed of the direct sunlight. Moreover, the large overhangs create a feeling of dim interior spaces to affect the psychological of the users. It is because the deep overhangs are enable to shield the interior of shed from the rain and the glare of sun, it provide the application of the large openings in the building and the used of louvers able to be opened in its design. So throughout this large and depth overhang roof of particular design method, the heat gain can be successfully reduced to achieve the thermal comfort in the shed.

In addition, due to the heavy monsoon rains in every year, so there have some flooding problem occurs after the heavy rainfalls. The traditional Malay vernacular houses has used timber stiles to elevate the shed far from the ground to solve the flooding problem. It is also provided a better natural ventilation as well because of the higher velocity of the wind and help to promote the air flow through the underneath of the building. In this method of passive design, the entire building would be become cooler and have a nice ventilation in the internal space. In Sekeping Serendah, the timber and glass sheds had adopted this vernacular design method by raising up the shed to off the ground. Therefore, these raised sheds not only to achieve the concept of likes threading lightly on ground and also showing that it is able to provide another solution to tackle the heat gain issue. However, in the forest with the sloping, the shed ARC 2213/2234 Asian Architecture

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah. in the Sekeping Serendah is not altering the contour of forest ground, but then the sheds are raised up about 1.5 meters off from the ground to the sloping ground terrain.

These two sheds are sturdy enough and the stilts are anchoring them to ground with this lightweight structural. In this performance, the cross-ventilation is helped and successfully cooling the both of these shed during the hot and windy days.

One another traditional Malay houses feature is the open interior spaces with the minimal or no partitions within the building. This three kind of sheds of Sekeping Serendah which is Mud, Glass and Timber shed are fully followed this vernacular architecture principle in open plan design with no wall. The interior of these sheds are wide and openness which is giving a spacious feeling to the users. With this method of design, hot air is able to flow out through the plenty openings and the operated louver on all sides of the sheds.

Figure 11 Overhang roof in the timber shed

Figure 12 Raised on stilts in Sekeping Serendah

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Figure 13 Ventilation through roof joint

3.2.3 Floating roof Design

Figure 14 Floating roof design in Mud Shed

However, the floating roof design is only apply in the Mud Shed. With this significant part of the design in the Mud Shed is a bit different with the others sheds which is the Tmber and Glass Shed in Sekeping Serendah. Instead of making the shed rest on stilt this kind of method, the Mud shed is literally built on the ground of the forest as it is a much bulked and heavy design material if it is compared to the glass shed. Therefore, the method that provide a good ventilation in a mud shed is creating by the floating roof design. It is new concept to achieve the well-ventilation in the building and able to supply the shortcomings of this heavy and bulky structure. In the method of making the large cantilever flat roof, Mud sheds are supported by columns so it will be leave a gap between the roof and the wall to let the hot air to flow out from the floating roof design and increase the air flow to reduce heat gain in the building. Therefore, it was not the only a way to make the building rest on stilts, the effect of cross –ventilation is also facilitated through this kind of design method.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

3.3 Choice of Building Materials However, one of the important things on the construction of the building is the building materials used. In the process of design a building, the building material used will influence the environmental. Therefore, it is very important to choose the local material with consideration of the relation of material selected for the shed to achieve the thermal comfort in the tropical climate. There are three major types of materials are used in the sheds of Sekeping Serendah which is timber, mud and glass. The different materials used are contributed to different kind of themes and mood of the sheds. They are using different kind of material which is modern material such as steel and glass and merge with the traditional material such as timber and brick. They are combined well together to achieve the not only thermal comfort and also a great visual effect for the visitors. The thermal conductivity and the thermal mass properties of the materials must be evaluated because they are particularly to each other to reduce the heat gain in a sheds.

The partnership of material in the Glass Shed is glass and steel, Timber shed is timber with brick and Mud Shed is mud with glass. With this partnership of pairing the material used in the shed are created an interesting outcome to overcome the heat gain problem. This is because, all of the materials have their own demerit in their thermal mass properties or thermal conductivity. Therefore, the different material used in the shed are able to overcome their partner shortcoming to achieve the better result in controlling the heat gain problem in the sheds.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

Figure 15 Glass and Steel used in Glass Shed

For Glass Shed in Sekeping Serendah, the high thermal conductivity of steel is balanced off with the pairing of the low thermal conductivity material which is the glass material. In addition, these two materials are also the low thermal mass storage.

Therefore, the heat gained issue in the glass shed is able to be solved rapidly during the day time. There is not only the material used in the glass shed to achieve the thermal comfort for user, the shading of forest canopies also can be help to reduce the heat gain of the glass shed as well. So, glass shed can be able to address well in the Malaysia this hot and humid climate by this kind of methods. One the other hands, during the night time, the Glass Shed can be cools rapidly so it was creating a relatively cool environment for the users to achieve the thermal comfort.

Figure 16 Timber and Brick used in Timber Shed

For Timber Shed, the higher conductivity of brick is balanced off with the lower conductivity of timber. Timber is a natural material that are easily can be found in the Malaysia this kind of tropical climate. So, most of the vernacular architecture design are using timber as the main building material. The timber not only easily can get in the forest and also because of its lightweight to make it become the more significant ARC 2213/2234 Asian Architecture

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah. building structure nowadays. For the thermal conductivity and the thermal mass properties, timber will not store the heat during the day time and it will be able to dissipate heat rapidly during the night time. On the other hand, the other material used in the timber shed is the brick. We know that brick is actually come from the clay and it has the higher thermal mass storage than the timber material. The role of the brick in the timber shed is construct at the footing of the timber shed in this wet area of forest.

This is because brick can be withstand the moisture that which is timber materials not good enough in its properties.

Figure 17 Mud and Glass used in Mud Shed

In addition, the building material of mud is not a usual choice of material in a building for nowadays. More of the mud construction is found in places where more to a dry weather. Actually, the mud used in the Mud shed of Sekeping Serendah are look similar like the concrete material. In the pairing of the mud and glass, mud is acting the role on the lower thermal conductivity. Mud construction is more durable because it can be recycled and has the efficiency cooling properties. In the Mud Shed, the glass is construct in the larger openings and the operable sliding glass doors to keep the principle of open plan design. In this tropical climate, heat gain will reduced in the shed base on the low thermal conductivity of mud and glass material.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

5.0 Conclusion

After do the research and have a site visit in Sekeping Serendah, I have more know about how the passive design influence a building to achieve the thermal comfort.

Thermal Comfort is achieved by Sekeping Serendah design strategies of orientation of the placement of shed, vernacular design adaptation and materiality.

The strategic location of the sheds contributed to reduce the direct exposure of sun.

The forest trees is very important for the shading and greatly helps the glass shed in achieving thermal comfort. Like the photo above showing, I can feel the warmth of nature in Sekeping Serendah, people can be close to nature with the proper sun exposure and the good thermal comfort. In addition, the sheds of Sekeping Serendah retreat is able to avoid the heat gain issue by implementing an open plan design with minimal party wall obstruction. Air exchange is able to be carried out through the crossventilation. Influences from Malay Vernacular Architecture also contributed to the solution of overcoming heat gain. One of the key that make the sekeping serendah become famous and successful is the material in used on the shed. The different kind of mood are created by the match of the modern and traditional material with the materials its proper thermal conductivity and thermal mass to intergrate with each other in Sekeping Serendah. At the same time, the material use as an architecture language to impress the nostalgia feeling to the visitor. Based on these 3 kind of passive design strategies ideas, that’s how the Sekeping Serendah achieving the thermal comfort in Malaysia this tropical climate.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

6.0 References Alakhram, A. (n.d.). Architecture History of Malaysia Houses. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/alialakhram/architecturehistory-of-malaysia-houses Janzen, C. (n.d.). Theorizing Vernacular Architecture in Malaysia. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://connorjanzen.com/vernacular-malaysia/ Khan, A. (n.d.). Mud architecture. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/aziz_khan/mud-architecture Lim, A. (March, 2008). Unite with Mother Nature. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://thingsasian.com/story/unite-mother-nature Nasir, A.H. (1985) Introduction of Traditional Malay House: Peninsular Malaysia Darulfikir: Kuala Lumpur.

Rick Hamme/ Roger Williams University. (n.d.). Blending Architecture with Nature: the Old Man in the Mountain. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=archthese Sekeping Serendah. (n.d.). All Sekeping/ Serendah. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://www.sekeping.com/serendah/ Vasani, K. (n.d.). Vernacular architecture. Retrieved 20 June, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/khyativasani3/vernacular-architecture-15569131 Yuan, L.J. (1987). The Malay House: rediscovering Malaysia’s indigenous shelter system/ Lim Jee Yuan. Institut Masyarakat.

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Effective passive design strategies in achieving thermal comfort with the local climate in Sekeping Serendah.

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