The
pictures shows a typical Newar vernacular building in Kathmandu. This is
a building which has been modified throughout many years. The Newar
villages are denser than the others in Nepal’s warm temperate climates and the houses are often located at the sunny slope of the hills with the
longer façade facing south. The larger windows are also facing south
with the large roof overhang minimum 50 cm to shadow during summer. As you can see in one of the pictures above the living room windows usually has wooden carvings which will allow lower angle of solar radiation into the room in the winter. The space in Newar
houses are vertically planned which you can see in the picture above,
and the height of the rooms are between 1.6 and 1.9 which makes the heating go faster. Furthermore, the ground floor is used as a
buffer to the cold and humid ground, and both the bedroom and the living
room is located so they receive enough solar radiation during the day
and also is being protected for overheating during summer. As well as shading
the large roof overhang also protects the building from the large amount
of rain during monsoon season.
In Kathmandu there is used mainly stones as structural bearing walls and the the thickness of the exterior wall can be up to 0,5m. As main walling material, they use sun-dried or burnt clay-bricks. Newar architecture has
also developed a roof design which is water inclusive and consists of burnt clay tiles placed upon a mud layer of 4-10 cm. The supporting structure of the roof is made of timber and is covered of stone, hatch, tiles or slates. Regarding the building material the houses use a lot of wood both as
structural and covering, as well as clay to increase the thermal mass. The 60-80 deep stone plinth foundation protects the houses from flooding during the monsoon season.
Newar house is well adapted to the local climate with the high thermal
mass which stores the heat during day and keeps the temperature at a
comfortable level during night. Also, the material used are adapted to
keep the inside climate at a comfortable level as well as the internal
space arrangement.