**2.5 Experience of housing in Iraq**

Houses in Iraq were, compact with interior courtyard. The streets are sinuous and pass-through building volumes. In the meantime, between yard and street at least a wall or a building is constantly interrupted (see **Figure 12**) [44]. This isolation from the road indicates concerns for defense. The architectural elements are intensely decorated, reproducing typologies and traditional houses [45].

**Figure 11.** *An example of "HANOK" house in Korea.*

*Lessons from the World Sustainable Housing (Past Experiences, Current Trends, and Future… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100533*

**Figure 12.** *A specific urban texture.*

The patio is for the traditional dwelling the outside space that creates a microclimate and the most efficient form of using the inside space [46]. The shady interior courtyard has the effect that the rooms do not communicate directly with the overheated air outside, but through intermediate buffer spaces. The windows are small sized, located in the upper part and wooden framed (**Figure 13**).

"SHANASHIL" is a wooden decorative element piece or made from tiny wooden fragments allowing the inside [47]. ventilation and lighting and preventing the penetration of the outside excessive heat because wood. The thermal role of those elements is also a reflection of the sunlight and changing the current of air direction (**Figure 14**) [48].

Outside decoration are profiled elements of large volumes under various forms play the role of creating pronounced shadows on the sun-warmed facades [47]. Ventilation gaps, this element is opening located at the upper part of the houses, which is decorated with a grid network under the form of a drilled screen wall and used for ventilation and lighting [47, 48].
