Towards Sustainable Saudi Housing: Balancing Modernity with Traditional Architectural Practices

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70917/fce-2025-022

Keywords:

Saudi Housing Design, Passive Solar Control, Climatic Adaptation, Energy Efficiency, Cultural Considerations

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of integrating traditional and modern architectural practices to enhance energy efficiency and cultural compatibility in Saudi residential buildings. A comparative analysis was conducted between contemporary detached houses and traditional courtyard houses in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. A representative modern house was selected and evaluated using data from architectural consultants. This study highlights the high cooling loads in contemporary designs, which amount to 37,166,250 watt-hours annually, with peak loads in July and August. The reliance on air conditioning is driven by the design's failure to incorporate effective passive cooling strategies. The research proposes modifications to incorporate culturally and climatically effective shading elements. For instance, adding a shading element that allows for cross ventilation while maintaining privacy reduced the cooling load to 29,707,751 watt-hours annually. This represents a reduction of approximately 8 million watt-hours, demonstrating the efficacy of such interventions. The traditional courtyard house design, characterized by its central open courtyard and thick insulative walls, provided superior climatic adaptability, significantly reducing the need for mechanical cooling. These findings suggest that modern Saudi homes can benefit from integrating traditional design elements, such as vertical and bridging shading elements. These strategies not only enhance natural ventilation and thermal comfort but also align with cultural preferences for privacy. This study underscores the importance of revisiting traditional architectural wisdom to address contemporary environmental challenges, advocating for a balanced approach to sustainable housing design in Saudi Arabia. 

Author Biographies

  • Shams Mohammed Alshamsi, Prince Mohamad bin Fahd University

    Dr. Shams Alshamasi is an interior architect. In 2016 She got her PhD in sustainable architecture from the University of Western Australia, the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts ALVA. Her PhD research focused on learning lessons from vernacular architecture and then implementing sustainable principles to the contemporary Saudi home environment. Shams got her master degree from King Faisal University (KFU). In her Maters she specialized in housing. Her master’ s research focused on the adaptation of Saudis to high rise apartment buildings as a new form emerged to the Saudi culture. She got her bachelor degree in interior architecture from KFU. Honours degree during her undergraduate study in Interior Architecture, College of Architecture and Planning, King Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

  • Chuloh Jung, Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University

    Dr. Chuloh Jung is an innovative, inclusive and positive faculty member with extensive experience in government-funded R/D since 2000 in the Department of Architectural Engineering, College of Engineering at University of Sharjah. He received B. Arch. and Ph.D. from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. He also holds two master’s degrees, namely M. Arch. and M. Des. S. from Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He joined University of Sharjah in 2023. As his Ph.D. degree was about applying ubiquitous computing on residential environments, he became one of the national board members of U-City (Smart City) in Korea and head of several government-funded interdisciplinary R/D teams such as Smart Home Industrialization Center in KMU in Seoul, Korea. He was the director of Ajman University Innovation Center and incubated many innovative startups and kept on writing success stories within the SME ecosystem of United Arab Emirates.

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Towards Sustainable Saudi Housing: Balancing Modernity with Traditional Architectural Practices. (2026). Future Cities and Environment, 11. https://doi.org/10.70917/fce-2025-022 (Original work published 2025)