Cool white marble pavement thermophysical assessment at Al Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah City, Saudi Arabia

•Thassos marble used extensively as cool pavement at Al Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah City, Saudi Arabia.•Thassos marble provides unique thermophysical properties due to its dolomitic composition.•Thassos marble also offers unique ‘snow white’ color which matches sacred purity of prominent Al Masjid Al-Haram religious site at Makkah City. This paper presents a thermophysical assessment of the extraordinary ‘snow white’ dolomitic marble material being used for pavement, wall, and even roofing surfaces within the Al Masjid Al-Haram (i.e., Great Mosque) in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia. Extensive use of this extremely white marble with exterior pavements helps maintain a cool surface which is conducive to the site’s religiously obligatory barefoot pedestrian contact. Modelled analysis of this site’s expected diurnal marble pavement surface temperature during both summer and winter periods was derived using local seasonal weather data. These results conceptually confirmed this marble’s remarkable ability to maintain desirable cool-surface conditions even during peak summertime solar insolation periods. Comparative analyses of surface temperatures and energy transfer were also derived for the same site and weather conditions based on the possible alternative use of conventional paving options (e.g., concrete and asphalt). In this case, modelling results indicated that either of the concrete or asphalt options would have generated far hotter surfaces which would be unacceptable, and perhaps even dangerous for bare skin contact, during summer months.