Thermal Comfort Study in Post Disaster Housing in the Southern Coast of Sri Lanka

The Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 had a great impact on the local land formation, vegetation and settlement patterns in Sri Lanka. The re-housing developed to settle the displaced people were carried out in mass scale over a period of two to three years. By and large the criteria for re-settlement had little or no consideration for thermal comfort and climate change. This study was conducted with the aim of identifying the features in the building that causes overheating and features that has the potential to mitigate overheating.A thermal comfort field survey was conducted in selected house types in Boosa and Dadella in Galle, Madihe in Matara and Kirinda in Tissamaharama during the months that presented the most extreme climate conditions during the year. The physical characteristics of thirteen houses were explored; indoor thermal conditions were monitored with the aim of assessing the overall thermal performance of the houses.Findings showed the need to start at the neighbourhood level and the importance of the building envelope in achieving thermal comfort. Implications for design focus on guidelines for controlling the negative effects of the microclimate into the interior habitable spaces, together with the need for prescriptive thresholds for the building envelope.