| The high altitude of alpine climates results in a unique plateau climate with thin air,low temperatures,and aridity,where green vegetation grows slowly and the relatively closed-loop ecosystem is difficult to restore once damaged,making the ecology very frail.With the development of China’s economy,residents’ demand for comfortable living has increased.In the face of the harsh climate test of the alpine environment,local vernacular residential buildings rely more on the use of fossil energy and other non-renewable energy sources for their heating needs,while the essential shortcomings of local traditional houses,such as poor thermal environment and lack of energy efficiency in winter,are concealed.The remoteness of the region leads to an economy that is largely wasted on energy transport and has major problems in terms of ecological energy efficiency.The already fragile alpine climate is characterized by the consumption of huge amounts of fossil energy,the melting of glaciers,the reduction of vegetation and more serious ecological damage in different areas.Despite the cold climate,the alpine regions are rich in solar energy,and protection and mitigation from the outside world is a priority for maintaining a suitable indoor environment.The layout of local traditional dwellings creates a number of ’buffer spaces’,which are located at the interaction between the main body of the building and the outside environment,and directly exchange energy with the outside world,becoming the main means of regulating the distinction between indoor and nature.The design of buffer spaces has a multiplier effect.However,the research on buffer space started late in China,and although the research increased slowly in recent years,it is mostly concentrated in hot summer and cold winter regions and tropical regions,and the research objects are mostly large public buildings.This paper takes Tibetan vernacular dwellings in the area around Lhasa as the research object.Firstly,a large amount of literature is collected and collated and analyzed to summarize the main research methods and to argue the research value of buffer space in the alpine environment.The second part is an in situ study of the village dwellings around Lhasa.Through the analysis of the climate characteristics and the current situation of the dwellings in Lhasa’s alpine environment,typical dwelling samples are selected and categorized into their characteristics,and through a combination of test questionnaires and actual measurements of the thermal and physical environment in winter,it is found that the current dwellings in the alpine environment emphasize the use of the envelope structure and the design of the building space in winter heating,over-reliance on fossil energy,low thermal comfort in winter The third part of the paper firstly proposes the following.The third part firstly proposes the characteristics of buffer spaces in alpine environment,systematically identifies the buffer spaces in Lhasa houses,and further proposes the mechanism of buffer spaces in alpine houses from the perspective of energy flow between the building and the external environment,which is mainly to expand heat gain and reduce heat loss.After that,the spatial elements such as location,morphology and classification of each part of the space are studied separately to further investigate the mechanism of the buffer space in terms of ecological energy saving,and De ST software is used to simulate and compare the effects of different layouts of the buffer space on the indoor thermal environment.Finally,the existing design problems of buffer spaces in residential buildings are identified and need to be improved and updated.In the fourth part,the climate adaptation strategy of buffer spaces is studied.From the perspective of the relationship between buffer spaces and the energy exchange of the external environment,the theoretical research and quantitative simulation are used to investigate the methods of adapting buffer spaces to the external alpine climate,and the design strategies of absorbing favorable energy,blocking unfavorable energy,and gathering favorable energy are proposed.The ecological creation of buffer spaces for residential buildings in alpine environments is summarized.In the fifth part,the buffer space design strategies summarized in the above study are applied to the design of residential houses in alpine environments.Some of the typical dwellings in the study were selected and retrofitted with various buffer spaces for energysaving design.The effect of buffer spaces on the indoor thermal environment is demonstrated through before-and-after simulations,providing a theoretical basis for the future ecological construction of vernacular dwellings in alpine climates. |
