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This article focuses on the impact of courtyard design variants on shading performance of traditional courtyard houses in hot-arid climate of Iran. The aim is to identify the best design model for courtyard, regarding geometrical properties and orientation, to improve thermal comfort in the modern desert houses. To that end, ten traditional courtyard houses with various orientations, dimensions, and proportions from hot-arid climate of Kerman are selected. A three dimensional numerical models are developed using Design Builder software to determine shaded and sunlit areas for each case, based on a set of equations which were derived through analyzing the correlation between the sun location at any time and geometrical properties of courtyard. A new index is proposed to evaluate thermal comfort in courtyards considering average daily and annually temperatures. Shading and sunlit area are associated in this index to achieve the maximum comfort temperature during a year, and the relationships between this index and courtyard’s geometrical properties and orientation are investigated. Results show that the courtyard’s design variants have considerable influence on the shading performance of courtyards. As conclusion, all data sets were integrated to propose an optimized design model for courtyard as a passive cooling strategy. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.