Conference article

Urban comfort is becoming increasingly important due to climate change; increasing population and urbanization. Greater use of mechanical cooling is not reasonable due to consuming more energy; discharging anthropogenic heat and CO2 emissions which all can be minimized by passive strategies. As part of the EPSRC funded project Urban River Corridors and Sustainable Living Agendas; URSULA; two radically different urban regenerations for a site in Sheffield were passively designed and had to be microclimatically assessed upon their thermal impacts. Passive design strategy for the first is wind tunneling and solar shelter effects owed to compact form that provides river bank access by perpendicular streets. The second; park option; offers space for the river to flood into a green channel which provides evaporative cooling. Simulations using ENVI-met BETA4 applied four receptors to record different meteorology and the pedestrian comfort in terms of Predicted Mean Vote; PMV. The increased green coverage showed horizontal shifting of about 0.2 with 2h of urban time lag in PMV records from 14.00-16.00LST in some places. Results give advantage for the park option design but needs more emphasize on indoor performance.

Thermal impact assessment; urban thermal mass; urban time lag; urban regeneration