Towards Achieving Sustainable Development Goal-2030 Agenda-Thirteen: Selective Treatment of Sun-Facing Residential Window Fabrics in the Tropical Building Design

Abstract

High solar gains associated with the Tropical climate result in high indoor temperature, the consequence of which induces indoor thermal discomfort. Particularly, both the East and West facing component building envelope receive more solar gains through early morning sun rise and late afternoon sun set respectively, thereby raising the indoor temperature of the affected spaces within the periods. However, the need to optimize indoor thermal comfort through mechanical installations among others, increases carbon emissions into the atmosphere, as buildings account for about 40% of global emissions through their construction, operation and maintenance. Due to its importance at the global level, Climate Change induced mitigation has resulted into promulgation of seventeen-pronged (17) United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 2030 (SDG-2030) Agenda. Of particular relevance within the precinct of built environment is the Agenda thirteen (Agenda-13) which encompasses the need for urgent action to combat Climate Change and its impacts across various areas of human engagements. It is on this basis that this research work explored beneficial impacts of selective treatment of East and West-facing residential building window fabrics, in the tropical city of Ogbomoso, Nigeria. In its approach, comparative evaluations of indoor solar gains using single-glazed and double-glazed virtual building models was carried out through DesignBuilder based simulations. The results indicate 8.5%, 8.5% and 8.6% annual reductions in the indoor solar gains in the whole building, East-end apartment and West-end apartment respectively, with the adoption of the double-glazed windows. Focusing specific individual sun-facing functional spaces (bedrooms in this case), more significant reduction in the indoor solar gains (i.e., about 28%) was recorded in each case. This research output may influence subsequent design and composition of the sun-facing window fabrics at this local level, thereby leading to reduced mechanical installations, for optimum indoor thermal comfort. This is an attempt to contribute towards achieving SDG-2030 Agenda-13 individually at this level, for overall collective realization at the global level. This endeavour aims at reducing carbon emissions at the building micro level in the study area, for overall clean, safe and sustainable global environment. This submission is part of an ongoing research work scheduled to be validated with life prototype/physical models subsequently.