Hot and humid climate: prospect for thermal comfort in residential building

Human body response intelligently to different climate conditions by acclimatization and adaptation. The different thermal comfort behavior of human need for people in different climate condition and also for different season clearly shows that the design strategy for building must comply with the locality of the building. Intelligent system may be used for the purpose of compliance to thermal comfort. This paper describes typical strategies to naturally improve comfort in a climate which is hot and humid without air conditioning. Hot and humid countries like Malaysia usually require air conditioning but for residential buildings, the dependence for thermal comfort through air conditioning may be minimized. The prospect for not using air conditioning in rural area is relatively high when good design was adopted.