Academic literature on the topic 'Architecture, Tropical – Nigeria'

… an architecture and form of urbanism will emerge closely connected with the set of ideas that have international validity but reflecting the conditions of climate, the habits of the people and the aspirations of the countries lying under the cloudy belt of the equatorial world.Max Fry and Jane Drew, architects, 1956The concept of architecture, even in its widest traditional sense, is foreign to Africa.John Lloyd, architect, 1966Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, who had been in and out of West Africa since the 1940s as planners and architects, were optimistic about the role of architecture in the tropics on the eve of independence. In the text of Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zones they championed the development in Africa of the tropical modernism they had pioneered in their own work. In sharp contrast, John Lloyd, writing from Ghana just ten years later, conveyed a sense of the discipline’s estrangement from the context.

While glass as a material has been known to the people of western Nigerian for hundreds of years, it was only in the late 19th century that it became integrated into building and construction practice in Lagos. For the most part, early local architecture made little effort, if any at all, at covering window spaces with any material of permanence as the primary purpose of these orifices was more to let air in rather than light. Early European missionaries and colonial agents saw the situation differently. Their horrid fear for tropical bugs and matters of security and privacy necessitated a response and modification to the philosophy of tropical architecture. Using qualitative methods and visual analysis of archival images, this study takes a historical look at the beginnings of the integration and use of glass as fenestration and argues that so significant was the introduction in the late 19th and early 20th century in Lagos, that the innovation re-engineered the culture of architecture and living as we know it. The study identified the first building in Lagos to use glass as fenestration and discusses the role of missionaries in the development of innovation. It argues that missionary activity in the coastal city of Lagos, created a broad new industry and trade opportunities and concludes that the introduction of glass as a building material in 19th century Lagos, was not a mere development, but a significant innovation, both in construction and creativity.

Edwin Maxwell FRY and Jane Drew are best known for their role in the construction of Chandigarh alongside Le Corbusier, however, their Indian experience was proceeded by a long career in West Africa that began during WWII and lasted until the end of the 50's. Fry&Drew were active in Ghana and Nigeria constructing an impressive amount of buildings: schools, universities, houses, villages, office buildings and museums. Their on-site experience was conceptualized in the book Tropical Architecture in the Dry and Humid Zones published in its final version in 1964. This paper aims to analyze the manual as an attempt to establish a cosmopolitan and modern design system specific for the tropical areas. An experimental and scientific approach that saw in climatic data a tool in the creation of a new rootedness of modern architecture not based on cultural analysis or vernacular reinterpretation but on the complex analysis of local conditions in order to provide inhabitants with suitable design solutions. Tropical Architecture in the Dry and Humid Zones as a manifesto of a regionalist modernism, two apparently opposite terms that find a reconciliation in a design system that seeks to build a new cosmopolitan modernity.

Buildings have a considerable impact on the environment being responsible for a substantial proportion of global energy consumption, thus contributing significantly to the anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which evidence suggests is the main cause of climate change. Mitigation and adaptation measures are required to tackle the challenges of climate change. Adaptive measures – structural and behavioural strategies – are the focus of this paper. Structural strategies include flexible and adaptive structural systems; while behavioural strategies cover the spatial, personal, and psychological control measures which may influence the design and operations of buildings. The study explores the adaptive thermal comfort of occupants and examines the design strategies for adapting buildings to climate change in the tropical context, with a view to determine the effectiveness of these strategies as observed in the case study. The study was conducted during the rainy and dry seasons in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, located in a warm humid climate zone. The Institute of Venture Design student hostel was used as case-study to conduct the survey on a sample of 40 respondents by means of structured questionnaire. The respondents' thermal sensation and access to thermal controls were determined, and their thermal sensation and thermal adaptability in both seasons comparatively analyzed. Indoor environmental parameters including air temperature, mean radiant temperature, relative humidity and air velocity were also measured. The data were analyzed using relevant descriptive and inferential statistics. The study discussed the effectiveness of design strategies available for building adaptation in an era of climate change within the warm humid environment, concluding on the need for greater synergy between the techno-structural and socio-behavioural dimensions of building adaptation.

A base case model is a more potent dose for applied research; the passive architectural design for sustainability requires optimised experiments. However, experimenting with physical developments require construction and deconstruction until they achieved the optimal scenario. These wastes resources and time; hence, base models' development as useful instruments in the optimisation design process is desirable. Lecture theatres in universities have no specific design model whereby optimising one may not apply to the other. Therefore, this research evaluated a base model for lecture theatre regarding spatial configuration, daylighting potentials, and optimised window-to-wall ratio (WWR) for tropical daylighting. A study of ten existing lecture theatres in eight universities within eight states in Nigeria's hot-humid climate was analysed descriptively for the base model. The study employed Simulations with IES-VE software. The daylighting performance analysis adopted the daylighting rule of thumb, daylight factor, work plane illuminance (WPI), and WPI ratio. The results show that a typical lecture theatre in the study area has a dimensional configuration of 12×20 m floor plan, 6 m ceiling height, and a window wall ratio (WWR) of 13%. In the deduced base model, 4H was required for adequate daylighting against the thumb's 2.5 H daylighting rule. The research concludes a low window-wall ratio with poor daylighting quality and quantities in the base model; therefore, it implies that the daylighting was not a criterion in the designs. However, the experiment revealed a progression in daylighting performance with an increase in WWR from the base case until 30% WWR. Beyond that, there was a decline in the daylighting performance. Therefore, 30% WWR was optimal for daylighting performance in lecture theatre retrofitting within the tropical climate.