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In order to study the importance of climate comfortable conditions of urban public open spaces in marginal season of winter cities for people's outdoor activities, first, the paper ascertained the specific times of Harbin's outdoor and marginal seasons based on meteorological data from 1984 to 2013. Second, this paper conducted field survey, which includes in situ measurement and structured interview, in three typical urban public open spaces in marginal season. The calculated results show that Harbin has an outdoor season from Apr 25th to Oct 1st, and the spring marginal season is from Apr 4th to Apr 24th, the fall marginal season is from Oct 2nd to Oct 24th. At the same time, the results of in situ measurement show that there is great room for the improvement of climatic conditions of urban public open spaces in the marginal season of winter cities, especially the public open spaces near to the high-rise buildings and waterfront, and the apparent temperature in these two open spaces is about 3°C lower than the air temperature simultaneously. The results of structured interview show that people would like to do some outdoor activities when it is nice weather outside in marginal season, and the regression analysis results show that people's outdoor activities time are severely affected by climate comfortable conditions in marginal season. They feel that fine microclimate is much more important for a person than enough facilities and green landscape of urban public open spaces in marginal season. The paper suggested that the specific times of outdoor and marginal seasons should be added to some urban design guidance as a specification in urban planning practice, and this paper advanced some urban planning strategies related to urban design to improve climatic conditions of urban public open spaces in the marginal seasons of winter cities.

This paper aims to present the case of a semester-long study-abroad education class in Italy. This course explored place-based methods that classroom teachers (K-12) might use to connect students’ outdoor surroundings to extend the lessons they learn in school about environmental sustainability. The experience of the university instructor and students outlined in this paper highlights the promise of place-based education to provide a potent approach for conveying principles of education for sustainable development (ESD).

An American university course enacted the approaches of place-based education and learning outdoors (harnessing student curiosity, building community partnerships, etc.) to investigate the natural and civic systems at work in the city of Florence. The participants deepened their understanding about the natural environment, economic health and well-being of inhabitants and compared the findings about local sustainable resource management to international settings. Through a deliberate practice framework, the students designed classroom lessons.

This discussion of university students’ work in an education course illuminates the possibilities for place-based applications in elementary and secondary schools. The pedagogical principles applied in this course also highlight the multidisciplinary strengths of ESD.

This paper provides an inside look at choices educators must make to provide relevance in classrooms, to connect the curriculum content that is standardized by governments with the systemic dilemmas that challenge communities. The author details the pedestrian topics that the university students examined during the semester. These lessons show that place-based inquiry situated in the outdoors can present clear lessons about sustainable development. An international comparative perspective can enhance learners’ perspectives about local surroundings.

The purpose of this paper is to show that building stock is currently one of the largest energy consumers. It is thus imperative that buildings are optimally planned, constructed, and used from both the environmental and the economic point of view. Cost models are relevant tools for achieving this objective as they can be used to estimate the occupancy costs in early project phases including energy costs.

In the paper a regression model for predicting the energy consumption and energy costs of office buildings is developed based on the results of a survey conducted in 80 Swiss office properties.

The proposed energy cost model shows good agreement with the observed field data. The mean absolute percentage error resulted in 12 per cent. Validation tests using five properties not used for the model development revealed percentage errors ranging between −17 per cent and 7 per cent. The proposed concept and the presented cost model can be used as a basis for future studies.

The energy consumption and energy cost model can be improved as the database for developing them is further extended (including properties from different owners with different strategies, for example energy contracting, outsourcing, and maintenance strategies).

The objective of the study was to develop and validate a predictive model to facilitate the estimation of occupancy costs in early project phases. A procedure is presented on how quantitative energy consumption and cost models can be developed. Provided that sufficient empirical data are available, this proecdure can be used in further studies as a suitable and practicable concept to advance occupancy cost models.

The articles which take place within this issue cover various subjects of architecture. There are articles about different type of houses, urban issues, climatic issues, a historical building type and sustainable construction.

Traditional central courtyards have been advocated for being thermally efficient for hot-climate regions. However, exploring previous literature shows that it is not clear to what extent courtyards are truly thermally comfortable. This study determines the level of thermal comfort in residential courtyards in hot-climate regions, taking Baghdad as a case study.

This study develops a novel Courtyard Thermal Usability Index (CTUI) to quantify the ability of courtyards to provide thermal comfort to occupants. CTUI is the fraction of useable thermally comfortable hours in courtyards of the total occupation hours during a specific period. To operationalise CTUI, the research employs the Envi-met 4.2 simulation tool to determine the annual thermal conditions of 360 courtyards. An adaptive thermal comfort model developed by Al-Hafith in 2020 for Iraq is used to judge simulated thermal conditions and determine CTUI.

CTUI enables determining the level of thermal comfort courtyards offer to occupants by showing the ratio of the thermally comfortable period versus the occupation period. Results show that, in Iraq, annually, courtyards offer up to 38% comfortable hours out of the total potential occupation hours. The rest of the time the courtyard will not be comfortable, mostly due to overheating. When designing courtyards, the most effective geometric property impacting courtyards' thermal conditions is width/height. The most important microclimatic factor impacting occupants' thermal sensation is mean radiant temperature (MRT). This study can be used to inform designing thermally efficient courtyards for hot-climate regions.

This study presents the first assessment of the thermal efficiency of courtyards in hot-climate regions depending on an assessment of their ability to provide thermal comfort to occupants. The study presents a novel index that can be used to quantify the ability of courtyards to provide a thermally comfortable environment to occupants.

The purpose of this paper is to move beyond the stage of analysis of exclusively physical microclimatic phenomena and extending ourselves to the study of the impact of the microclimate environment on the user behavior in public spaces. This paper will open up new opportunities for the development of urban open spaces and facilitate the decision-making for urban decision-makers, city managers and planners to make the right urban planning decision.

The methodology for identifying the links between microclimatic quality of urban routes and behaviors was developed on the basis of the results obtained from field surveys carried out in nine public urban areas of the city of Biskra, three urban space are located in a traditional urban fabric (the medina) and the other five in new urban areas, in the two climatic seasons (winter, summer) of 2019. For this exploratory research, two types of instruments were used to collect data from environmental and human monitoring.

Improving microclimatic conditions in urban spaces can allow people to spend more time outside, with the possibility of increasing their social cohesion. The overall objective of this research is to better understand the impact of microclimatic characteristics on pedestrian behavior of nine selected public urban spaces in the city of Biskra, Algeria. To characterize this impact, the authors developed an approach based on crossing data of field surveys, including structured interviews with a questionnaire and observations of human activities (video recordings), as well as microclimate monitoring, conducted during the two climatic seasons (winter, summer) 2019. The analysis of the results allowed to verify the impact of the two climatic seasons (winter, summer) on the variation in the density of occupancy of the different urban areas studied and the duration of the user stations. The authors also illustrated that the number of individuals higher in the traditional urban spaces of the city of Biskra or the conditions of climate comfort are more comfortable than the urban spaces in the new urban areas of the city of Biskra during the summer, which is the season most problematic.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of scientific studies on the subject of control of microclimatic characteristics and, in particular, on the consideration of the thermal comfort of persons by qualitative analysis, prediction and representation of the perception of external environments. Improving microclimatic conditions in urban spaces can allow people to spend more time outside, with the possibility of increasing their social cohesion. This study highlights the importance of climate-conscious urban design and design flexibility. Urban environments can be modified in summer and winter to provide a better outdoor thermal environment for users. In addition, this study also shows the importance of harmony between microclimate and urban design. Such harmony can be achieved by including requirements for a climate-conscious urban design in the planning regulations for cities in arid zones.

This research will analyze the traditional Iranian buildings according to the climatic factors by the use of graph theory. By this way, the hypothesis that climate factor has a major effect on the organization of the spaces in traditional Iranian buildings will be tested. Access graphs have been used to clarify the connectivity and depth of a building’s spaces from the socio-cultural point of view. However, it cannot be applied to climate studies. Thus, this study developed the existing technique to define building layouts in terms of climate and thermal comfort. The thermal comfort was graphically evaluated by the two main factors like solar gain and wind effect, with the use of a simple multi-attribute rating technique. All the analysis had been done in the interval of zero (the worst condition) to three (the best condition). The proposed orientation-weighted graph method proved that the thermal comfort factors of the buildings under study match the seasonal movements of their inhabitants. Consequently, the developed orientation-weighted graph method can be used to study space organization in traditional Iranian building in terms of solar gain and wind effect.

Climate change will affect tourism at several temporal and spatial levels. This chapter focuses on the quantification of effects and the development of strategies to reduce extremes and frequencies as well as thresholds in tourism areas. Knowledge about possibilities for mitigation and adaptation of current and expected climate conditions requires interdisciplinary approaches and solutions. Several examples are presented, including the effects of trees against climate change and extreme events (heat waves), behavior adaptations, urban and regional planning measures, bioclimatic conditions in the Mediterranean and human–biometeorological conditions under climate change conditions, and user-friendly computer tools for the quantification of urban bioclimate conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to adduce the most appropriate thermal comfort assessment method for determining human thermal comfort and energy efficient temperature control in office buildings in tropical West Africa.

This paper examines the Adaptive Thermal Comfort Standard, from its research evolution to its contemporary use as an environmental design assessment Standard. It compares the adaptive component of ASHRAE Standard 55 and the European CEN/EN 15251. It begins by reviewing relevant literature and then produces a comparative analysis of the two standards, before suggesting the most appropriate Adaptive Thermal Comfort Standard for use in assessing conditions in tropical climate conditions. The suggested Standard was then used to analyse data collected from the author's pilot research into thermal conditions, in five office buildings situated in the city of Enugu, South Eastern Nigeria.

The paper provides insight as to why the ASHRAE adaptive model is more suitable for thermal comfort assessment of office buildings in the tropical West African climate. This was demonstrated by using the ASHRAE Thermal Comfort Standard to assess comfort conditions from pilot research study data collected on Nigerian office buildings by the author.

The paper compares the adaptive component of ASHRAE Standard 55 with CEN/EN 15251, and their different benefits for use in tropical climates. It suggested the need for further research studies and application of the ASHRAE Adaptive Thermal Comfort Standard in the tropical West African climate.

Assessment of outdoor thermal perception in urban spaces is of particular importance due to its financial, social and ecological consequences. Thermal perception includes four elements: thermal sensation votes (TSV), thermal preference (T_pref), overall thermal comfort (T_c) and thermal acceptability (T_accept). Thermal acceptability can offer a benchmark that specifies the acceptable thermal range (ATR), which is useful for urban planners, designers, and bio-meteorologists. ATR, however, can be defined either using direct or indirect measures. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the validity of the indirect measures of ATR, which are most commonly used in outdoor thermal comfort assessments.

This study was conducted in the context of Melbourne, which has an oceanic temperate climate (Cfb). Three sites forming RMIT University City Campus (RUCC) were selected as the case studies, which were located in the heart of Melbourne Central Business District. A field survey was conducted in RUCC during three seasons, from November 2014 (Spring) to May 2015 (Autumn), which consisted of concurrent field measurements and questionnaire surveys from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

In total, 1,059 valid questionnaires were collected from the three sites of RUCC. The results of comparative analysis between the different measures of ATR determination showed that the various elements of thermal perceptions expressed the users’ thermal judgements in different ways. Therefore, it was found that the instruction recommended by the thermal comfort standards on the definition of ATR failed to provide an appropriate estimation of ATR for outdoor built environments. The ATR, defined using TSV, therefore, was revised by the direct measure of thermal acceptability. The resulting range showed broader limits in acceptable thermal conditions in RUCC outdoor spaces users. Lastly, the results suggest that in the absence of directly measured acceptability of thermal conditions in field surveys, overall comfort is the most appropriate indirect measure to use.

Some indoor thermal comfort studies have used the alternatives for defining ATR. However, as the applicability of these four methods is yet to be fully explored in outdoor conditions with large weather variations, it is valuable to conduct a comparative analysis among these methods. This study also intended to understand the dynamics of comfort range under non-steady and non-uniform outdoor conditions. The resultant outcome has provided information on the relationship between different measures of thermal perceptions. Ultimately, this research aimed to explore the extent to which the indirect measures of acceptability are considered as a reliable source of information compared to the direct measure.