Thermal comfort adaptation in outdoor places

Abstract

The level of international migration has been growing in the last decades creating a plurality of cultures and inspiring a multicultural nature in global cities (O\u27Byrne, 1997; Short and Kim, 1999; Hawkins, 2006). This created new challenges in urban planning or the management of the coexistence of different people that are having different characteristics shaping their unique identity and needs in shared places. Being the urban stages where the social interactions happen, public places are considered important parts of cities (Thompson, 2002; Varna, 2009). These places can contribute to enhance the quality of life within cities, or contrarily increase isolation and social exclusion (Lo et al.; 2003). As agreed by researchers the users’ state of comfort gives a good indication for how successful is the public outdoor places (Rosheidat et al.; 2008; Kwong et al.; 2009; Aljawabra and Nikolopoulou, 2010). In order to create a successful open space usable by all members of a community, urban designers need to satisfy their thermal comfort needs in its wider meaning according to a variety of users (Knez and Thorsson, 2006; Thorsson et al.; 2007). While assessing the thermal comfort, in addition to the strong influence of the microclimatic parameters, the term thermal adaptation seems to becoming increasingly important. The thermal comfort adaption is then a considerable issue in design guidelines of outdoor environments (Nikolopoulou and Steemers, 2003). The main aim of the research is to examine the influence of thermal adaptation and environmental attitude on participants’ thermal requirements in outdoor public places. It focuses on understanding the effect of adaptation on the thermal comfort perception of immigrants. The research methodology of the research is provided through quantitative analysis of a case study. The findings of thermal comfort investigations could be applied into improving the quality of urban areas in order to increase the outdoor activities of citizens and use of outdoor places