The Nave Air Conditioning system is inspired by the Palestinian jarrah. It’s a wall made of terracotta. It uses water and natural evaporation to cool down indoor areas.
This wall can cool down rooms without the use of any power. The design is the brainchild of Yael Issacharov.
This designer from Israel wanted to create a better and more efficient way to cool down indoor areas without using ACs and paying huge utility bills.
The Palestinian jarrah: A Traditional Drinking Water Container from Terracota
It hangs in rooms and it cools down the water and the living space. The clay in these containers contains small pores. It’s traced all the way back to the Bronze Age and the neolithic, across the whole Mediterranean.
The water filters out of the pores slowly and evaporates using the water’s heat. This heat disperses into the air, making the water gradually cooler, similar to how humans sweat.
When the atmosphere is dry and the temperature is high, this is a highly efficient process. It decreases the water’s temperature by several degrees.
Therefore, it’s been traditionally used by various cultures for storage of drinking water during summer.
Issacharov wondered if the same cooling phenomenon can be included in the building. She wanted to make walls beneficial and active to the indoor space.
This is when she found her second inspiration. This was the work of Hassan Fathy, an architect who brought back the traditional methods of building, using mud and adobe to modern Egyptian architecture.
Centuries of experience helped traditional cultures develop methods that helped in creating energy-efficient construction techniques and provide thermal comfort in regions throughout the world.
All of these methods are built with locally-sourced materials in a sustainable way.
Fathy proposed the usage of these techniques instead of modern Western methods and materials that contribute to higher energy consumption and accumulation of waste.
Turning the Jara into Active Walls
With all of this in mind, Issacharov found that the best solution to cool down homes is turning the Jara into active walls.
Her Nave AC system works in a simple way. The building block is from terracotta tiles and features hollow tubes. They look like a piece of woven chain made of fabric if seen through a microscope.
The complex design contains water which gets cooled down as it evaporates. During this slow process, the wall becomes cooler itself and therefore, reduces the room’s temperature.
Issacharov explains that with a sufficient number of these tiles, any space can be thermally comfortable at around 77 degrees F and a humidity level between 30 and 50 percent.
Locally-Sourced & Scalable
This system will need to be scaled for bigger rooms. As it’s modular, you can assemble as many tiles as needed to create the desired surface.
Being a site-specific system, the size and number of tiles depend on the location and the space’s size. According to Issacharov, they created a formula that takes into account all of the aspects of cooling down the space effectively.
Issacharov has a degree in industrial design from the Holon Institute of Technology. Currently, she’s residing in Barcelona. She says the Nave is the ideal solution for desertic towns, from Texas to Iran.
The price of the Nave will also depend on the region and size. And, it will be more expensive to install than an AC unit; however, the electricity savings will offset the extra cost.
This method, she believes, will be beneficial for local economies and the environment. She explains that traditional building methods are sustainable due to using what they have at hand.
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