Professor S.

Roaf: Badgir (Irans Ancient Air

Conditioning System)
This article by Professor S. Roaf first appeared in the Encyclopedia Iranica on December 15, 1988
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The Badgir (wind-tower), literally wind catcher, a traditional structure used for passive airconditioning of buildings. Wind catchers are found throughout the Middle East, from Pakistan to
North Africa (Coles and Jackson, A Wind-Tower House in Dubai, pp. 1-25; idem, Bastakia WindTower Houses, pp. 51-53) where they have been built since antiquity.

The Badgir system at Yazd (Above photo appeared in www.Persian-Star.org). See also
Professor Roafs reconstruction of the Yazd Badgirs .

Figure 7. A wind tower in Yazd with projecting timber poles to which scaffolding is
attached for maintenance
In construction and design they exhibit a great deal of regional variety but they all perform a
similar function (Badawy, pp. 122-28): channeling prevailing winds trapped in vents above the
roofs of buildings down to cool and ventilate the rooms below.

Figure 8. Sectional plans of five typical Yazdi wind tower types at vent level. A.
Unidirectional. B. Two-directional. C. Four-directional. D. Octagonal with two vents on
each side. E. Four-directional with two false vents on two opposite sides.
Wind catchers are built in many regions of Iran, predominantly on houses in areas with a hot arid
climate. In Bandar-e Abbs and other ports along the Persian Gulf they are normally square
towers built on the roofs with vents on one side open to the sea-breezes.

Figure 9. Cross section through a wind catcher serving the main summer rooms of a
house in Yazd. A. lr.
B. Basement. C. Courtyard with pool.

Light bamboo screens are often placed across the vents over which water may be thrown on
summer afternoons to cool by evaporation the air passing down into the rooms below (Roaf, 1983,
pp. 257-68). In Khorasan and Sstn, rooms have simple unidirectional vaulted vents over them
called locally mehna(Tavassoli, p. 49). In the Srjn region, houses have distinctive unidirectional
barrel-vaulted vents with slatted openings. zestn has many fine wind catchers which serve the
basements for which towns like Ahvz are famous. Wind catchers are also built in Shiraz,
Isfahan, Tehran, Qom, Semnn, and Dmn but they are most widely used in the cities, towns,
and villages to the south of the central desert in the Kn, Nn, Yazd, Kermn, and abas
regions. Yazd is known as ahr-e bdgrh (the city of wind catchers) and is renowned for the
number and variety of its wind catchers, some of which date from the Timurid period (Figure 7)
(OKane, p. 85).

The worlds sole 6-Badgir water reservoir in the world at the ancient Iranian city of
Yazd -

-. (Above photo appeared in www.Persian-Star.org). Note

also the below summary of the 6-Badgir at Yazd in Persian by the www.PersianStar.org:

.

.
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English Translation:
The 6-Badgir water reservoir at Yazd is named as such due to its possesion of 6 Badgirs, the only
such water reservoir in the world. The reservoir was firs tbuilt with three Badgirs with the three
other Badgirs contructed later (it is possible to see the differences between teh older and newer
Badgirs). Note that the Badgirs have been built in an octagon fashion due to considerations of
wind patterns and geographical factors. yazd also has the worlds only seven-Badgir water
reservoir (contains two reservoirs) which is located in the village of Asr-Abad.

Wind catchers here are brick towers which generally rise from between 30 cm to 5 m above the
roof although the tallest bdgr in the world, built at B-e Dawlatbd in Yazd, rises 33.35 m
above the roof of the garden pavilion it serves. Wind catchers have vents at the top in one, two, or
up to 8 sides (Figure eight) and these vents were decorated in brick, mud plaster or ornately
carved lime plaster.
The most common use of wind catchers is to cool and ventilate summer living rooms on the
ground andbasement floors of houses (Roaf, 1982, pp. 57-70); air trapped in the vents of the
tower is cooled as it descends and in turn cools the occupants of the rooms below by convection
and evaporation (Figure 9).
When there is little or no wind, air rises up the tower, the walls of which are heated by the sun, so
drawing cool humid air from the courtyard and basement through the summer rooms (Bahadori,
pp. 144-54). Ventilation by wind catchers is particularly important in basements which are slept in
on summer afternoons and nights. Wind catchers are also built onto the living quarters of
caravanserais, over prayer halls of mosques, and on water cisterns where they efficiently chill
stored water by evaporative cooling.
Bibliography:
A. Badawy, Architectural Provision against Heat in the Orient, JNES 17, 1958, pp. 122-28.
M. N. Bahadori, Passive Cooling Systems in Iranian Architecture, Scientific American 239, 2,
February, 1978, pp. 144-54.
A. Coles and P. Jackson, A Wind-Tower House in Dubai, Art and Architectural Research Papers,
1975, pp. 1-25.
Idem, Bastakia Wind-Tower Houses, The Architectural Review, July, 1975, pp. 51-53.
B. OKane, The Madrasa al-Ghiysiyya at Khargird, Iran 14, 1976, p. 85.
S. Roaf, Windcatchers, in Living with the Desert, ed. E. Beazley and M. Harverson, Aris and
Phillips, 1982, pp. 57-70.
Idem, Windcatchers in the Middle East, Islamic Architecture and Urbanism, selected papers from
a symposium organized by the College of Architecture and Planning, King Faisal University,
Dammam, 1983, pp. 257-68.
M. Tavassoli, Architecture in the Hot Arid Zone, Tehran, 1975, p. 49.