Investigation of Traditional Dwellings in Four Middle Eastern Cities in terms of Strategies for Coping with Climatic Factors and Privacy

Due to the shortage and difficult access to energy resources designers have forced to make the best of nature. Passive heating and cooling strategies are the most famous design patterns in almost all historical architecture sites. The track of privacy values is also clear in the traditional architecture. We can observe different design patterns in regions with similar climate which is induced mainly by privacy and climatic issues. This study has investigated the harmonizing features of traditional and contemporary architecture in relation with Environment and privacy. Climatic issues and privacy factors have been studied which influence the design of houses in different regions having similar religion and climatic conditions. The study has initiated by definitions of housing, traditional houses, discussion of traditional dwelling beside Koppen climate classification and also discussion on contemporary house design. It has been also applied to the chosen field studies as Kashan (Iran), Mukalla (Yemen), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), and Bagdad (Iraq) which all their housing interior elements were defined comprehensively. In each and every case, design strategy under the impact of climate issues beside the privacy has been investigated and compared with the contemporary dwelling cases in the same region. Data have been collected based on qualitative procedure including: literature survey as well as the observation. Keywords: Traditional architecture; Contemporary architecture; Climate issues; Privacy