EFFECT OF SOLAR SHADING ON THE THERMAL COMFORT OF DESIGN STUDIOS: A CASE STUDY OF DESIGN STUDIO DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA.

There has been a drastic increase in the use of active cooling systems in buildings all around the worldespecially in hot humid climate regions. The last two decades has witnessed a severe energy crisis indeveloping countries especially during dry season primarily due to cooling load requirements ofbuildings. Solar shading is the term used to identify a number of systems to control the amount of heatand light from the sun admitted into the building and are a key factor in mitigating the impact of energyconsumption in the environment. This study is aimed at evaluating the effect of solar shading on thethermal comfort of design studio and this will answer the question to what extend does passive coolingaffects thermal comfort? The methodology employed for this research is that of case study and quasiexperiment(using Autodesk ECOTECT Analysis), a baseline model was design and analysed with andwithout solar shading features and the difference was deducted. Findings from this study indicates thatthe indoor temperature with and without solar shading features are 31.230 and 42.150 respectively.Therefore, the indoor temperature difference is 10.920. In conclusion, when designing buildings,adequate emphasizes should be given to solar shading in order to enhance the thermal comfort ofoccupant and reduce the quantity of energy consumption in buildings. However, this paper focuses moreon solar shading, it is recommended that research on the effect of other passive cooling techniquesmeasure should be carried out.