Thermal Environments and Comfort Perception in Shophouse Dwellings of Ho Chi Minh City

This paper reports on a long-term investigation into the thermal environment and perceptions of comfort in dwellings located in Ho Chi Minh City. Of particular interest is the so-called ‘shophouse’ dwelling types prevalent in Vietnam and other SE Asian countries. Shophouses are narrow urban buildings used for business as well as living accommodation. A review of shophouses across the city determined three main types (traditional/new/row house) and four subgroups. Automated data recording systems were set up for longitudinal investigations (long-term recording of air temperature/humidity/movement) in four dwellings coupled with occupant questionnaires/interviews and shorter cross-sectional studies in additional buildings. The paper explains the techniques utilized to derive optimum data collection and some of the difficulties encountered. Summaries of the extensive data are presented noting for the warm season, typical indoor temperatures ranged from 29-35°C though the neutral temperature was 28.5°C (upper limit to the comfort range =31.5°C). The results are compared to previous comfort research findings. Due to the nature of the dwellings, an important environmental factor was considered to be air movement. Though there was a correlation between internal/external airspeed, indoor air movement rarely exceeded 0.2ms-1. Design guidelines/suggestions for optimising comfort are made based on shophouse type.