CLIMATE RESPONSIVE BUILDING DESIGN STRATEGIES OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE IN SWAIDA CITY, SYRIA

The history of Swaida city in several civilizations was clear through architecture as if it formed a mixture of them all. Each culture had its own way of dealing with the environmental conditions, combining these design strategies accumulatively resulted in a rich architecture that deals with the environment in a very systematic way. On the other hand, the construction strategies dealt with a lot of limitation such as the lack of resources and experiences which were not available during those periods. This report describes the historical and climatical characteristics that Swaida city has, and reviews some design strategies that used to respond to climate challenges.

"The Effect Of Local Basalt Stones On The Behavior Of Structural Reinforced Elements Subjected To Shear And Bending "

This paper studies a practical laboratory process of the possibility of benefiting from an important resource of the natural resources available in the country, namely "Basalt" which is found in large quantities in the southern region (As-Suwayda) to demonstrate how much it meets the requirements of Standard Specifications for use in the manufacture of concrete by testing five design mixtures of concrete , of which the cubic dimensions are (15% x 15) cm and the cylindrical dimensions are (15 * 30 cm) with different percentages of the basaltic and dolomitic calcareous compounds used in them as follows: (0% basalt and 100% lime),( 25% basalt and 75% lime) , (50 % basalt 50 % lime) (75% basalt 25% lime), (100%basalt and 0% lime) on the strength of pressure and tensile strain by Splitting and Moduls of Elasticity of ages (28-7-3) days, and its effect on the behavior of Reinforced Structural Elements susceptible to shear and Bending through testing Reinforced beams of dimensions (16 × 12 × 200) cm on shear, Bending and cracking Moduls (Coefficient) with ages of (14-28) days.