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Due to their independent structure, piping, and access, townhouses offer great flexibility in floor plan changes and high spatial autonomy, making them the mainstream housing type in Taiwan. This study focuses on row houses and examines 2022 completion cases in Kaohsiung City. It collects floor plans from 14 newly constructed buildings, totaling 227 units, and analyzes spatial dimensions including the facade width, depth, habitable room, staircases, bathrooms, and total floor area for each case. The objective of this study is to examine the spatial layout of row houses in Kaohsiung City, with the aim of providing a reference for the future planning and design of such structures. The study results showed that 81.8% of the row houses analyzed have a total floor area per unit ranging from 136 to 192 m2, a facade width between 4.1 and 6.38 m, and a building depth from 7.67 to 12.68 m. In addition, they showed a low negative correlation between the facade width and total floor area, a high positive correlation between the building depth and total floor area, and a moderate negative correlation between the facade width and building depth. The spatial distribution within these houses includes 78% allocated to habitable room, 13.1% to staircases, and 8.7% to bathrooms. The total area of habitable rooms and bathrooms increases with the total floor area of the building. However, the total area of staircases remains almost constant as the area of habitable rooms increases. Furthermore, the most common location for staircase planning is the rear-right (RB) position, while the least common is the rear-left (LB) position. Among various staircase types, the C-shaped staircase has the largest average area per floor and the highest average proportion. Conversely, the I-shaped staircase has the smallest average area and the lowest average proportion. The U-shaped staircase is the most frequently planned, whereas the C-shaped staircase is the least frequently used. This means that planning of staircase location and type significantly affects the size and layout of habitable rooms and bathrooms in townhouses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The building ventilation of seventy-seven row houses in eight districts in Chiang Mai province of Thailand was surveyed and investigated. A typical row house re-purposed as a restaurant refers to a 3.5 m high space with two stoves in the front of the building and a closed rear area to serve as storage. As a base-case, restaurants had an average capacity of 24 customers in the dining area. Measurements of internal air quality of a selected restaurant were conducted in the summer season of 2015 and 2017, and the results revealed average air temperatures of 36°C and 33°C, relative humidity values of 46% and 33%, and air speed values of 0.28 m s-1 and 0.10 m s-1, respectively. The Computerised Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) thermal comfort tool were used to simulate the efficiency of current and proposed ventilation techniques and also analyse thermal comfort conditions for each scenario. Low-cost cooling techniques of air speed and humidity adjustment were chosen to improve thermal conductions. By applying the combined techniques, the overall temperature was reduced by 2°C and the thermal comfort levels were improved from the ‘hot’ to the ‘warm’ zone. Some conditions in the second restaurant are in the expanded ‘adaptive thermal comfort zone’. Although most results appear to exceed the ‘adaptive thermal comfort zone’, conditions could not be further ameliorated since 1.5 m s-1 was the maximum air speed that could be employed in the dining area to avoid wind discomfort. Limited investment in ventilation improvement was the main challenge since air-conditioners and multiple fans were not affordable and were also insufficient for the re-adaptation option. Feasibility study of ventilation improvement technique is limited in this study.