Indoor Thermal Comfort for Commercial Buildings in Nigeria Urban Environment

Abstract

Providing comfort for building inhabitants is difficult and essential in this era of climate change and global warming. This is a result of growing challenges facing designers to provide buildings that will be fit and comfortable for users in the 21st century. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine indoor thermal comfort in commercial buildings in a warm-humid climate of Uyo Urban, Nigeria. The study revealed that the S-N and N-S orientations were considered optimum for thermal comfort in commercial buildings in Uyo Urban. It was found that higher values of MV corresponded to lower values of temperatures and the lower values of MV corresponded to higher values of temperatures. It was therefore inferred that thermal feelings increased in the direction of coolness with a reduction in temperature and increased in the direction of warmth with an increase in temperature. Therefore, building orientations strongly relate buildings to their natural environment, proper utilization of thermal inertia, sun, wind, prevailing weather patterns and topography which further create optimum thermal comfort for users. Hence, Planners and Designers should consider the S-N orientation and ensure that buildings are not closely clustered to ensure cross ventilation during overheating.