ARCH 346 Booklet C - Najd PDF

Arch 346 َ Najd (Arabic: ٌ‫ن ْجد‬, pronounced [nad͡ʒd]), or the Nejd, forms the geographic center of Saudi Arabia accounting for about a third of the country's modern population. Historic Najd was divided into three modern administrative regions still in use today. The Riy...

Arch 346 َ Najd (Arabic: ٌ‫ن ْجد‬, pronounced [nad͡ʒd]), or the Nejd, forms the geographic center of Saudi Arabia accounting for about a third of the country's modern population. Historic Najd was divided into three modern administrative regions still in use today. The Riyadh region, featuring Wadi Hanifa and the Tuwaiq cliff, which houses easterly Yamama with the Saudi capital, Riyadh since 1824,the Sudairi region which has its capital in Majmaah. The second administrative unit, Al-Qassim, houses the fertile oases and date palm orchards spread out in the region's highlands along Wadi Rummah in central Najd with its capital in Buraidah (second largest Najdi city). The third administrative unit is northerly Ḥaʼil, which features the mountains of Jabal Shammar housing the Tayy capital of Ḥaʼil. Architecture of the central region (Najd) Typical houses of the central region (najd) are introverted type where the house is built around one or more courtyards that are normally a pure geometrical form of either a square or a rectangle. The courtyard serves two functions: microclimate moderator and maintain the family life privacy life. As a microclimate regulator, the courtyard produce three air movement cycles in the house creating a desirable comfort level to the residents. This is because the fluctuation of temperature between day and night varies from 10c to 20c (Fig. 2c). The traditional construction material in the najd region was earth in the form of sun-dried mud bricks. The mud also used as a plastering material for internal and external walls which, in essence, proved suitable for the sandy weather since building colors remain unaffected by the weather (Facey 1997). Walls are loadbearing walls with limited small openings. External walls were thick (about 80–100 cm at the base) which acted as highly effective insulation from excessive heat in summer. The prominent features of najd vernacular architecture can be summarized as follows: – houses are generally arranged around courtyards that act as lungs of the houses to regulate the micro- climate. – houses have a compacted design where houses were built with shared sidewalls (sometimes from three sides) so they shade one another reducing the solar heat gain and glare. – Small opening were arranged on the exterior walls to allow air circulation to the court while maintaining the privacy. – Triangular-shape decoration and Sharfat on top of wall parapet are two prominent feature. The Central and northern (Najd) region, mainly a vast hot dry plateau in the center of the country. Farming communities of Wadi Hanifah The settled, farming communities of Najd were composed chiefly of tribes people who could trace their origin to one of the great bedouin tribes, past or present. They lived in small tribal farming villages along the wadis of Lower Najd. Occasionally some of these small settlements would coalesce and attain political dominance over their neighbours, leading to a process of centralization which would culminate in the establishment of a town, with its seat of government, markets and central mosque. Eventually this process of state formation might lead to the emergence of one of the towns as a real regional authority, like ad-Dir‘iyyah. Agriculture and livestock Much of the farmland on either side of the Wadi Hanifah flood channel occupies a raised step of fertile soil 3 to 5 meters above and on either side of the Wadi bed. The edge of the step was protected from flood waters by a retaining wall of large stone blocks, which can still be seen in some places today, and which has been rebuilt at al-‘Udhaibat. Occasionally the flood waters after storms reach such a height that they surge through openings in the wall to reach the foot of the rugged cliff marking the edge of the wadi behind the plantations, doing considerable damage as they do so. The courtyard house The courtyard house — or, more strictly, the atrium house, meaning a house with an internal courtyard open to the sky surrounded by rooms represents a commonsense response to the problems of a windy, dusty environment. So such houses are found, not surprisingly, in all the arid regions of the world. But the form has also been adapted to wetter, temperate zones, notably under the Roman Empire, when the atrium villa was commonly to be found as far north as Britain and Germany. The domestic courtyard, like the walled garden, answers a deep need certainly a social one, and perhaps an existential one too: the desire for an enclosed, secure piece of outside space, placing one’s daily life in a unique relation with the sky and the seasons. For Arabians, the night sky, the moon and the stars hold a special place which, in their heat seared land, they have not accorded to the sun. The night is a time of coolness and ease when the sky can be looked at, and can become familiar, in complete contrast with the hostile, blinding glare of day. This relationship with the sky found lyrical expression during an interview with Hasan Fathy in 1978, when he said: In the typical courtyard house, open space is closed entirely to nature at ground level, which is necessary to shelter from the heat and glare.... We also know, according to aerodynamics, that wind blowing above the house will not enter the courtyard, but will pass over and create eddies inside. Thus, the courtyard will retain the cool air that has settled there, and the air will seep into the rooms and walls, cooling the house. This represents the mercy of God coming from the sky, and explains why in Islam the Deity resides in the sky. Thus the courtyard house did not arise from something spiritual alone, but it added the spiritual to the functional. Mud-built courtyard houses provide particularly effective protection against heat when they are grouped together with shared party walls in neighborhood blocks: then fewer of the walls are exposed to the heat. Old Najdi towns like Riyadh were built like this, with continues rooftops punctuated only by the light-wells formed by the courtyards and by the narrow streets. In Najd it is typified by the square or rectangular house, often on two or more storeys, with rooms arranged round and opening onto a colonnaded courtyard. Thick external walls present an essentially featureless face to the outside world-except where they are perforated on upper levels by patterns of ventilation holes in the form of triangles and lancets. Since it is so well suited to the social and physical environment of Najd, there is no need to look elsewhere for the origin of the Najdi courtyard house. It is most likely to be a case of convergent evolution here, and it is probably pointless to seek its origin in cultural diffusion from another source. The sea is a region of wide temperature differences, notably between day and night. Najdi buildings are designed to make as much use as possible of the cool night air and the cold radiating from the night sky, and to exclude the dust-laden winds. Islamic courtyard houses are of two types: the interior courtyard or at atrium type, in which the courtyard is enclosed by rooms; and the exterior courtyard type, in which the courtyard is not enclosed by the house. The atrium type is commonly found in Najdi towns, while the exterior courtyard is more often found in rural areas. Typical Najdi courtyard houses are conceived from the inside out, with the decorative elements concentrated inside essentially blank facades. This strong introversion is accompanied by the strict segregation of family life from the reception of guests on the male side of the house. Sometimes two entrances, two staircases and two sanitary blocks are provided to cater for this separation of functions. Extensive use is made of transitional circulation spaces by the inclusion of a colonnaded gallery round the courtyard on each storey, which also modifies glare and provides shaded outdoor space. The ground floor is used for storage and animals, although there may also be a diwaniyyah or reception room adjacent to the entrance, adorned with elaborate stucco wall friezes. Most of the other rooms can be used interchangeably for eating, sleeping, recreation and domestic tasks. Room functions often change according to the season of the year. Najdi building has a number of distinct environmental advantages. First, at night the courtyard acts as a sink for the cooler air on the roof, helping the cooling of the downstairs rooms, which have plenty of doors and other apertures opening onto the courtyard. During the day, of course, the courtyard heats up quickly, especially when the midday sun strikes the courtyard floor. Then the heating of the air within the courtyard creates a chimney effect: hot air rises, pulling air through the rooms from the outside and setting up a breeze. If this air has already passed through an irrigated palm grove on its way into the house, the cooling effect will be increased. Next, the courtyard will always have a shady side, but care is taken, by the addition of a colonnade, to shade the inward-facing walls of the house from the direct light of the sun, so improving the coolness of the rooms. If only one side of the courtyard is shaded in this way, then it will be the northern side with its south-facing inner wall. At al-‘ Udhaibat Farm, that wall and its Opposite number outside the drtwdniyyah are shaded by colonnades, while the other two sides are left exposed. The courtyard, especially in buildings of two or more storeys, is also vital as a light well, because of the lack of external windows, and lets daylight into all the rooms as required. If the courtyard is surrounded wholly or partly by a colonnade, as it almost always is, then the daylight is filtered and loses its glare. Most obviously, a courtyard building with its inward-looking windows and blank outside walls provides effective protection from wind and wind-borne dust and sand. Architectural elements Five Najdi settlements – Ad-Diriya, Sudus, Alkhabra, Ushaiqer, and old Riyadh – were chosen and the study focused on four architectural elements – Doorway, Tarma, Alfuraj, and Shuraf – found in these traditional Najdi settlements. The Element of Doorway elaborately decorated door typically indicated a higher level of wealth and a higher standard of living of its owner. A door with simple, inexpensive materials that contained no decoration indicated a lower level of wealth and a lower standard of living of its owner. The door element embodies dual meaning5. The meaning changes depending on how inhabitants use the door and to whom it serves (men/guest door or private family door). This element worked as an important visual representation that guided local people to “name” the house and identify its location. This is because in most cases, we found few other external visual elements in the traditional Najdi settlements. There are two doors providing access to a building, the guest door is usually wide, decorative and colorful, while the family doorway is narrow and has less ornamentation. Occasionally there is a setback among doors in narrow pathways. The building is located near public or semi-public streets, the guest door is usually more prominent while the family door is more hidden. Different physical representations of door ornamentation found in the traditional Najdi built environment. A number of traditional house doorways. (1, 4) a family/guest door with a setback and basic ornamentation (2) a family door with narrow width, and (3) a guest door with wide and decorative elements. The Element of Tarma It is a mud or wooden element seen in exterior building walls and near the house door (typically, above the door) for female residents to watch silently who is outside through its small holes seen at the bottom of its base. The term “Tarma” in Arabic means the person who cannot speak, and the term is associated with the architectural element due to its main function, which is to observe the streets and see who’s knocking on the door from inside the house without being seen from the outside. The Tamra has different shapes and forms such as half circle, square, triangle and rectangle. Typically observed the Tarma element in buildings that have a second floor.  The element’s functional purpose is to help observe the street and main door from above eye-level which causes buildings with only one floor to rarely have such an element. Street width controls the size of a Tarma. The street type, width and location control the element’s formation. Serves as decorative elements above the door and to the exterior of the building. Some of them are highly ornamented. Tarma having different shapes and forms that function from inside to observe the outside streets in the traditional Najdi built environment. The Element of Alfuraj This element is a small window or aperture, locally called Alfuraj (pl. Furjat) that takes the shape of a triangle or rectangle. The naming comes from its meaning and function. Furjah means “an opening” in Arabic. The element exists in settlement building walls to provide daylight and air, while in observation towers (attached to settlement walls) the element is used for defense. Furjat are usually located in the upper parts of a wall and close to the roof. The element’s location is important, carefully located so that they do not expose the house’s inner spaces visually to anyone outside, especially exposure from neighboring facing walls. In traditional rooms (e.g., guest space, kitchen, washrooms) there are two rows of Furjat that range between 20-35 cm in height (about 15 inches). The first row is located at the top of the wall, near the ceiling, and the second row is located below it, where the lower row contributes to the entry of cold air. The reason for the element to be small in size is to make it easy to close with mud or stone during winter seasons without effecting the building’s structure. Najdi people developed Alfuraj to be an inside and outside element that meets their specific needs without affecting the privacy of other buildings. There are two physical representations for how Furjat appear in the Najdi settlements. One physical representation orients itself toward the inside of the building, where the element is simple and more functional. The second physical representation is oriented toward the outside, where the element is more aesthetic and serves different functions (Figure 6). The building’s location and size influenced both representations. Alfuraj, as an element was used to decorate the building’s exterior walls by using different alignments, arrangements and density. The bigger the building, the more its walls can accommodate complex patterns of Furjat openings. The Element of Shuraf The name of the element of Shuraf (pl. Shurfat) comes from the Arabic word “Sharaf” or “Ashraf” which means “to observe” or “to look.” It is located at the end of a building element or on its edge. The Shuraf element is both internal or external and inhabitants usually placed the element on a settlement’s walls and on the façades of buildings. Shurfat are usually built with mud brick (adobe) and covered by local gypsum and painted white plaster, called “Nora,” for decoration and to protect the mud parapet from rain. Physically, it has different representations such as curved lines, the shape of plant leaves, the shape of an arrow, straight lines, different angle positions, or a pyramid shape. In any form a Shuraf takes its shape, the head always points toward the sky. It is for that reason that the Najdi people as well as other Arab towns call it “A’arayis Alsama” (brides of heaven) A Shuraf, in general, extends a wall’s height to provide privacy for the house’s roof, which is especially important in the summer time, as in the summer the roof is used as a space for sleeping at night. using the Shurfat that are not solid (has voids) element between adjacent houses usually occurs when relatives live next to each other. It also encouraged women to not use external streets to socialize with their neighbors as the integration of the roofs provided access among adjacent houses. The other placement that a Shuraf takes is in the settlement’s walls (fence) and fortified towers. In buildings (within the settlement), a Shurf is meant to extend the building’s walls and enable interaction with adjacent neighbors while giving the building edges a pleasing aesthetic appearance, and in roofs as water protection while also defining the skyline of the settlement. In the settlement walls (fence), the element is meant to enhance security by enabling the people to observe any movement outside the settlement and to protect soldiers from exposure to the enemy when they engage in battle, where the solid shape is to protect the soldier, and the void space between two shurfat is intended to enable a soldier to engage the enemy. In settlement walls the element appears large, dense, and taller to express defense and protection. while in buildings within the settlement the density of the element in any building depends on the social status of its owner and the location of the building. However, both placements of Shurfat elements – both inside and outside the settlement – are similar, where the inside elements are physically more decorative and spaced out, while the outside elements are bulky and solid.