Study of Khartoum single floor house layouts using google satellite high resolution images

This paper aims to determine the most common features of both the layout and the building materials of the single floor house in Khartoum-the capital of Sudan-using different methodologies. The results were then used to create a standard testing model to be utilized by researchers in all fields, especially, researches in the field of energy simulation, environmental design, etc. Google High resolution images were used to determine the layouts by studying the location of the visible roof parapets of each house. Three small neighborhoods were randomly chosen from the three cities of Khartoum state (Khartoum, Bahri, and Omdurman), each neighborhood contained around 350 houses. Additionally, one large neighborhood (about 15000 houses) was selected in an old third-class area in Khartoum state to test the various house layouts, in order to estimate the commonness of a specific uniform layout amongst the other layout patterns. Afterwards, the building materials and space dimensions were determined by surveying a random sample of 96 houses chosen from the large neighborhood. These 96 houses were built in accordance to the uniform pattern layout subject of this research. The results show that the uniform pattern layout is clear in about 39.75% of the total samples, and the common dimensions (length, width and height) of the room, hau, saloon, and the kitchen are (4.4m × 4.2m × 3.8m), (5.7m × 3m × 3.2m), (7.4m × 3.2m × 3.8m), and (4.4m × 4.2m × 3.8m) respectively. The most used materials are brick for the walls, local materials for the roofs, steel for doors, and steel frame and glass panels for the windows in 88%, 38%, 76%, and 82% of the cases respectively.