Blog by Elkane Constructions

Vegetation: The bigger traditional houses or kothis of Lucknow have bigger gardens and baradaries. The smaller traditional houses have a few small trees and shrubs planted mostly in the courtyard. The vegetation near the vicinity of the building helps in creating comfortable environment. Plants and grassy covers reduce temperatures by absorption of solar radiation and cool by evaporation. sometimes the trees also shade the building as well as the nearby spaces, which reduces the heat gain. Water body: Water body, fountains and water cascades can be found in the palatial buildings of Nawab.S. Water bodies have been provided in front of the building, within the building or on the terraces. Baoli or underground step wells have been provided in few of the bigger buildings or kothis. The smaller residential houses generally do not have any water body, but in some buildings, water fountains can be found which are located in the central courtyard. Evaporative cooling takes place due to the...

Ventilator: Ventilators are prominent features that are found in almost all the traditional buildings. They are manually operated and provided just below the ceiling. The warmer air rises and leaves the space and cooler air from the court enters the room to take its place. Thus it creates a stack effect. A typical vent near the ceiling increases the velocity of air entering into the building and hence resulting in lowering of the pressure at the ceiling level, thereby inducing the hot air under the roof to flow out through the vent. In this way, air is kept circulating through the room under the roof. Ventilators also function as clerestory windows to light the interior spaces, which do not have any exposed surface to admit light through window openings. Jharokha: Jharokhas are another characteristic feature of traditional buildings of Lucknow. In tune with the need for privacy for women, facades are characterised by small openings often in the form of jharokhas. These can be f...

Verandah: Verandahs are found widely in the traditional buildings of Lucknow. They are generally located at the entrance or around the courtyard, shading the peripheral rooms. They function as a transitional space between enclosed rooms and outdoor spaces. They provide shade to the walls to reduce heat gain and receive fairly good light and natural ventilation induced by the courtyard. verandahs on the southern face are the most effective building elements, which allow the sun to reach the interiors in winters, and prevent it in summers. Thus, it screens interior space from the penetrating rays of the subtropical sun and prevent windblown rain from entering living space. High ceiling: One of the features associated with most of the traditional buildings of Lucknow is a high ceiling. The bigger palatial houses or kothis have a greater ceiling height, which varies from 4.5m to 5.4m. Whereas the ceiling height in Smaller traditional houses varies from 3.6m to 4.2m. Greater ceiling hei...

Courtyard planning. The courtyards are found in most of the traditional houses of Lucknow. With compact organisation, the house and the streets have become very close to each other, so the most natural thing was to close the house to the exterior and open it to the interior thus making the courtyard an important feature of the house. The idea of an inward looking house is also reinforced because of the climatic reasons. They are mostly centrally located and are open-to-sky or partially shaded with overhangs. This also provides shaded spaces which results in reducing heat gain. Due to the incident solar radiation in the courtyard, the air in the courtyard becomes warmer and rises up. To replace it, coo air from the ground level flows through the openings of the room, thus producing the airflow. During the night, the process is reversed. The cooled surface air of the roof sinks down to the court and enters the living spaces through the low-level openings and leaves through the higher-...

The second type of houses belong to the middle-income people. The house plan and design is characterised by a courtyard type house, sometimes with an underground level. The houses open on narrow streets through a hierarchy of spaces such as Verandah, entrance lobby, etc that become the interface between the street and the house. The buildings are two-to-three storeys in height, frequented with a balcony on the first or second floor. This house type can be considered as generic traditional house of Lucknow. It consists of a simple plan with a verandah and a courtyard surrounded by rooms on all sides. The upper storey comprises one or two rooms with terraces, ball conies and pavilions. Natural and Passive Techniques Identified: The indigenous architecture of Lucknow evolved through the entire spectrum from individual buildings to settlement pattern, responds through form, thermal mass, spatial hierarchy, activity pattern, material and construction. The traditional buildings in Lucknow...

The city has two discernible entities, viz: the older habitations in the central part, and the newer Settlements all around it. The older areas of the city (largely south of the Gomti river such as Kaiser Bagh, Chowk, Nakkhas, etc) are characterised by high density and pre-colonial settlement structures. The oldest dense settlements and relatively newer areas built during colonial period make up the core of the city. The older urban settlement was compact and mostly planned around courtyards with respect to the climate and need for social interactions. The outer and peripheral have primarily been settled in the post-independence period. The urban fabric is very tightly knit in the old city so much that the street feels like an elongated courtyard carved out of a dense building mass. The streets in the older settlements are narrow and winding. The width of streets varies from 3m to 5m. Due to slight meanderings, there are no views down the entire length of the streets. Streets act as...

Climate of Lucknow: Lucknow falls within the composite climate category, having four main Seasons, the summer, which is hot and fairly dry, the monsoon, which is less hot but humid, a period of moderate temperatures and humidity, and a slightly cold winter period. The climatic data of last 20 years published by the central building Research Institute, Roorkee, is summarised below: Air temperature: The monthly mean maximum temperature during the hottest month (May) is 41.2°C and the monthly mean minimum temperature during the Coldest month (January) of the year is 8.9°C. Relative humidity: The relative humidity during Summer Can be less than 25% and during the most humid months the relative humidity is in the range of 78% to 82%, whereas the air temperature is in the range of 32.5°C to 34°C. Rainfall: The rainfall starts with the arrival of the monsoon in the middle of June. The regular rainy season continues up to the middle of september. The total annual rainfall...

History has shown us that architectural built forms have evolved in response to the climate, lifestyle and availability of building materials. Although housing typologies are a result of multiple determinants, climate and culture are the two most important determinants. Rapoport mentions in his book "House, Form and culture" that the need of shelter design adapts and responds to the severity of climate in the area. It is this intuitive adaptive capability to respond to the forces of climate like sun, wind and humidity that sets apart bioclimatic architecture from senseless, arrogant, and merely style-based creation. The traditional buildings of the past are the best pointers in this regard and constitute outstanding evidence of being climate responsive architecture. The traditional houses of Lucknow, which is the context of this study, were also built much before innovations in mechanically controlled interior environment. The traditional houses of Lucknow are climate r...