Streets, buildings, open spaces : a social and environmental comfort analysis

ABSTRACT This work combines research on environmental comfort and social comfort, attempting to find correlations between the two. More specifically, environmental comfort is studied in terms of urban ventilation and shadows, and parameters for studying social comfort are defined. Urban morphology is used as a structure for the work; six diverse urban patterns are identified and used as variables to determine how social and environmental comfort change in relation to urban form, and in relation to each other. The aim of the study is to determine which urban morphological factors perform well on both the social and environmental comfort scales. The methodology for defining and analyzing social comofort is based on a literature review of relevent authors. Specific factors for measuring social comfort are defined as a result of the literature review process, in which seven different conceptions of how to make better public spaces are discussed. The factors considered in the social analysis include visual permeability, physical permeability, traffic flow, walkability, active building fronts, building diversity, building density, size and number of open spaces, access, and comfort. In this study, environmental comfort is based on a wind and shadow analysis; other environmental factors are not considered. The methodology for defining and analyzing environmental comfort is based on a combination of local and general studies, in which each case study is analyzed first in its natural environment and then all the case studies are analyzed under the same generic conditions in order to remove variables related to location. The factors considered in the environmental analysis are wind speeds and shadows in streets and open spaces, calculated as a result of changing wind direction, time of year, geographical location, and urban morphology. The case studies that performed the best in terms of both social and environmental comfort were Novi Sad and New York. Other case studies perfomed well in one area but not in others: For instance, the Moscow sample scored well in many areas of envionmental comfort, but the social scores were very low. Outcomes suggest that there may be some conflicts between social and environmental comfort. However, even within the area of environmental comfort there are many conflicting factors, and the same is true for social comfort. In each case, it is necessary to balance the trade-offs in order to maximize positive results. Overall, the two goals are not incompatible, but more research into the relationships between social and environmetal comfort could produce more well-balanced results.