Balancing between conservation and thermal comfort requirements has  to be applied to maintain the cultural heritage and to develop the technologies  to meet the historical building’s needs. So, the debate about this topic shall be  performed through theoretical, analytical, and practical studies.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Is it possible to achieve balance between the thermal comfort  requirements and conservation requirements in the naturally ventilated  historical  buildings in hot arid zones?

CONCEPTUAL  FRAMEWORK

Thermal comfort requirements and building  performance issues in the historic buildings require multidisciplinary approach  concerned with buildings that were designed in a specific period for a certain function to meet the need of their  inhabitants and protect them from the climate  conditions at that time. As time passed on, these buildings became an  essential source of information about the history but in order to maintain  these buildings the need of the current community and current climate conditions  should be evaluated. Analysing the variables in this topic should be carried  out in order to evaluate if it is useful to restore the natural ventilation  system nowadays or it is better also to consider additional solutions to  preserve architectural heritage and building use. Figure (5) shows simply the main variables in balancing between cultural heritage and thermal comfort requirements. The conservation issues and building energy performance issues will be discussed in this part.