ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 743

design element that could be effectively used in high-rise buildings, emphasizing two hypotheses; the first that the skycourt in high-rise buildings can provide a contemporary alternative to
the traditional/vernacular courtyard due to its potential to allow natural light and ventilation to
penetrate deeper into the interior of the high-rise building and avoid solar gain, which is the main
principle of the passive courtyard. The second hypothesis is that the skycourt can be considered
a passive cooling technique that is thermally beneficial in different climates regions; hot or cold.

2. The new paradigm of high-buildings
Le Corbusier defined the modern city as the new trend of cities; which is the city of tower (Pomeroy 2007). Per et al. (2011) added that: ‘what was historically a dense network of streets and courtyards was transformed post 1980s into a city of monotonous high-rise objects that expressed
a greater verticality in the skyline’ ((Per et al. 2011) cited in (Pomeroy 2014)). ‘ Towers’ , ‘High-rise
buildings’, ‘Skyscrapers’, ‘Tall buildings’ can all describe the new picture of cities; which can provide a solution for the growth of the demand for buildings as a result of the increase of urban
population. A high-rise building or tower can be defined as a tall building with a small footprint
and a small roof area with tall facades and has special engineering systems required by its height
such as structural, mechanical and electrical, vertical transportation and movement systems, fire
protection and other systems (Yeang 1999). However, the specific height of this building depends
on the context itself; it may range from a height of ten floors to more than 120 floors (Fig.1). Figure
1 illustrates how the term of high-rise building follows its context; it shows a number of high-rise
buildings which are located in different areas around the world; Asia, Middle East, Europe and
North America. One of these buildings is the Shanghai tower (the highest); it is 121storeys / 632
m height, while the Galaxy SOHO in Beijing is only 15 storeys / 67 m height. Both buildings are
located in China and both are high-rise buildings. Another example is the Marina Bay Sand, it is
57 storeys / 195 m height, while the Singapore National Library is 16 storeys / 102.8 m height. The
Acros Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall (the lowest) in Fukuoka, Japan is 15 storeys /60 m
height (Pomeroy 2014). In spite of the extreme variety in heights, all of the above buildings are
considered high-rise in their surrounding context and cities.

Figure 1: High-rise buildings in various countries worldwide (Pomeroy 2014)
Yeang (1999) identified the high-rise building as a green building that resolves the increase of urban population growth. He stated that the high-rise buildings are green buildings because they
have small footprints and can hold large number of population, in other words, intensification
of urban living, so they are the appropriate building type nowadays that deal with the current

Passive design approach for high-rise buildings: from courtyards to skycourts

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