Improvements in comfort conditions in residential houses in Sub-Saharian climate

Housing in developing countries is a big problem. Very often limited resources and not favourable climatic conditions lead to indoor climate very far from acceptable comfort level. The principal goal of this analysis is to reach a better comfort inside building in tropical or sub-tropical area using local building materials and techniques revised by modern knowledge. An optimization process has been carried out considering the following parameters and elements: orientation, shading, ventilation, insulation, mass and colour of the envelope. As case study a teaching centre realized in Burkina Faso inside a developing program of United Nations in 2000 has been considered. Several building arrangements (envelope and natural ventilation) have been analysed by using ENERGY PLUS, taking as reference the operative temperature and evaluating the yearly percentage of hours of dissatisfaction.