Urban Ventilation, Improving the Wind Environment in High Density Cities by Undrestanding Urban Morphology

Abstract

There is clear evidence that Heat island has changed cities microclimate from their original and it has led to increased overheating risk, longer summer periods and higher energy consumption for cooling. Understanding of the relation between urban morphology and favorable wind conditions could provide a key to avoid such serious episodes and to improve the cities air quality as one the most important parameters affecting the urban life experience. Yet optimizing permeability of urban fabric to ensure adequate natural ventilation in urban areas is an unresolved issue faced by planners and architects. In this paper a method has been introduced to analyze microclimate in urban compact patterns. through this method Nine pilot samples, taken from different compact cities around the world, are examined. The results of the analysis are patterns’ wind flow direction, speed and temperature which are compared among selected patterns. These kind of comparisons and analysis could be helpful not only for monitoring the existing microclimate condition for necessary interventions, but also to evaluating natural ventilation and wind comfort in further urban projects. It is also proposed a user friendly method to map the urban microclimate. The proposal is initiated from the fact that existing simulation software demand time consuming and complex process of model preparation, simulation and results interpretation. The method is mainly made of three steps: 1) patterns recognition, 2) recognition of the main street canyons, 3) integration of patterns microclimate database with the GIS tables of data to provide final wind maps.



Author Information
Neda Aghabegloo, Polytechnic of Milan University, Italy

Paper Information
Conference: NACSEE2014
Stream: Environmental Sustainability and Environmental Management: Atmosphere and Air

This paper is part of the NACSEE2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon