Conference Agenda

This paper presents five design prototypes for cool urban water environments developed in the ‘Really cooling water bodies in cities’ (REALCOOL) project. The REALCOOL prototypes address an urgent need: urban water bodies, such as ponds or canals, are often assumed to cool down their surroundings during days with heat stress, whereas recent research shows that this is not always the case and that urban water bodies may actually have warming effects too. There are, however, indications that shading, vaporising water, and proper ventilation can keep water bodies and their surroundings cooler. Yet, it is necessary to explore how these strategies can be optimally combined and how the resulting design guidelines can be communicated to design professionals. The REALCOOL prototypes communicate the spatial layout and biometeorological effects of such combinations and assist design decisions dealing with urban water environments. The micrometeorological simulations with Envi-met showed that the prototypes led to local reductions on daytime PET from 1 °C to 7 °C, upon introducing shade. Water mist and fountains were also cooling solutions. The important role of ventilation was confirmed. The paper discusses and concludes about the use of the prototypes as tools for urban design practice.

During an architectonical competition for a new neighbourhood in Frankfurt/Main, Germany microscale urban climate modelling was carried out to help decision makers to choose the best climate adopted design for implementation. Based on an urban climatic map with ventilation modelling all designs were proofed by the microscale model ENVI-met. The evaluation was done with the thermal index PET, as here ventilation and radiation processes could be judged. All results show a clear change in climate. For the winner design it was possible to reduce the local heat load and creating air paths for surrounding neighbourhoods.

ABSTRACT: Climate scientists warn that “time is running out to prevent global environmental collapse” [1]. Global CO2 emissions increased again in 2017, after three years of stagnation. This was the conclusion drawn from two studies that confirmed the forecasts of experts who recently participated in the Bonn Climate Summit (COP 23). [2] It is therefore increasingly urgent to cut emissions and thereby avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Only then will it be possible to achieve the objective of not exceeding an increase in average global temperature of 2ºC that had been established at the Paris Climate Summit. Here, we report on a case study of energy rehabilitation involving a publicly-owned residential building constructed in Barcelona in the 1960s and a plan to convert it into an Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB): “EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings" (2010/31/EU). [3].

KEYWORDS: Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB), Passive house principles, Energy modelling software.

The urban village is a unique phenomenon in China that thousands of former rural villages have been rapidly urbanized along with the surrounding built environment. The government, developers, and urban planners positioned these urban enclaves as to have terrible environmental quality and support wholesale demolition during urban renewal. Given the absence of environmental knowledge of urban villages and the evaluation of environmental impacts after reconstruction, this research examined urban heat island (UHI) and outdoor ventilation of two reconstructed urban villages in inner-city Shenzhen. Significant UHI during the day and night in the two reconstructed urban villages and strong wind conditions of some edge spaces were captured. Sky view factor, greenery planning, and the porosity of ambient environment provide directions to address the above-identified environmental problems.