Occupant comfort in mid-rise residential buildings in Abuja, Nigeria: the trade-off between thermal and visual performance

This work is part of an ongoing study on the evaluation of daylighting and thermal performance of Nigerian housing schemes that were developed in the 1980’s, and are still being used as prototypes for low-income housing developments. Various houses that are located in four districts in Abuja and constructed at different phases of the city’s development are selected for the investigation. The paper reports the results of assessing the performance of two of the eight selected residential building types, two mid-rise blocks of flats constructed in 1983. The paper assesses the performance of the buildings in their current state and examines the potential for improving their internal conditions by using a range of shading devices. Using widely available commercial building software, the metrics of operative temperature, illuminance levels and the frequency of visual and thermal discomfort in the two selected buildings were calculated. The paper provides insight into the environmental performance of this building type with the intention of using the findings for improving occupants’ sense of comfort by optimising solar shading.