Investigating The Impact Of Muqarnas On The Daylighting Performance Of Historical Turkish Baths

Abstract

Intangible cultural heritage features of historical buildings became an important issue after the UNESCO’s Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage adoption. In addition to all their other traditional features, the atmosphere of the Turkish baths (hammams) interiors, which includes daylight and steam, can be accepted as their intangible cultural heritage feature. Furthermore, the interrelation between daylight and the geometric features of the baths can be listed as an effective parameter in creation of this atmosphere. Therefore, in this study, we focused on the interaction between daylight-intake and the muqarnas of traditional Turkish baths. The purpose of this study is to measure the effect of muqarnas decorations on the daylight intake in the interior space of historical Turkish bath through simulations. Also, in this study, a model, which can optimise the muqarnas geometry according to the desired amount of daylight intake annually in the space, has been proposed. A part of the bath with muqarnas in its dome transition element was selected for daylighting analysis. After the simulation set-ups were made, daylighting analysis simulations were carried out on the 3-dimensional models of the Turkish bath with and without muqarnas. According to the simulation results, it was observed that muqarnas had a slight effect on the daylight-intake. With the proposed optimisation model, the relationship between the amount of daylighting in the interior and the muqarnas has been emphasized. The optimisation experiments proved that the daylighting performance can be enhanced with the help of muqarnas decorations.