Paper Title
Thermal Environment Conditions for Iranian People

Abstract
Traditional courtyard houses in Iran are the products of a long period of evaluation, incorporating qualities and characteristics, which are the distillation of generations: of the combination of experience and invention, of climatic influence, of Muslim lifestyle and craft traditions. But, contemporary houses are built in response to new technology and modern life styles. A thermal comfort surveys of people living in two above types of naturally ventilated housing performed in Iranian city of Yazd is presented in this article. Over 420 subjects in 32 courtyard housing and 39 flats responded to thermal comfort questionnaires. At the same time physical and individual measurements were taken. The study has identified several thermal comfort adaptive actions that a person might take to achieve comfort. In the courtyard houses, one of the adaptive actions was moving to a different thermal environment from the one causing the discomfort, while in the apartment flats opening windows and running fans were essential to achievement comfort. There was a decrease in clothing insulation of subjects with rising temperature in both types of housing. The paper concludes with a discussion of the thermal comfort adaptive behaviours exhibited by the two groups studied in the survey. However, the adaptive model is shown to be valid without any modification, for predicting the thermal comfort. Keywords - Thermal comfort, Field survey, Adaptive model, Passive buildings, Energy use in buildings