S i m u l a t i o n o f T e m p e r a t u r e a n d W i n d F i e l d
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SIMULATION OF TEMPERATURE AND WIND FIELD IN THE
NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE “GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART”,
GLASGOW CITY
Patricia Drach
1
& Rohinton Emmanuel
2
1
Program of Post-Graduate Studies in Urbanism, School of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil,
2
Department of Construction & Surveying, School of Engineering & Built Environment, Glasgow Caledonian
University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK
Abstract
Urban areas are known to promote the formation of heat islands, with the consequent
increase in energy consumption for air conditioning during warm weather
conditions. Successful environmental planning requires attention to the regional
environment. The meticulous study of environmental and climatic characteristics of each
place is an active part of the decision process in architecture and urbanism. In tropical
countries such as Brazil, this additional heat is usually not welcome. In colder maritime
climates such as the case of Glasgow city, the heat island phenomenon could bring
benefits in terms of a possible reduction of energy consumption for heating. In this work
we study the temperature field in the neighbourhood around the “Glasgow School of Art”
by checking two specific scenarios according to urban morphology. The first one is the
current situation and the other one includes the plans for Phase 1 of The Glasgow
School of Art re-development. The re-development project will take place at the Renfrew
Street on the opposite side to the original Glasgow School of Art. This evaluation could
help us understand the local dynamics of these variables and to look for ways to take
advantage of situations where ventilation is blocked or quasi-stagnant due to urban
morphology. The computational simulations were made using ENVI-met, a software
developed for climate simulations in urban areas. The adopted methodological approach
consists in a two steps solution: the first one encompassing the problem of gathering
data - data input includes weather data, urban morphology such as building density,
size, height, shape and road linkage as well as soil covertures such as vegetation, sand
and water-bodies -; and the second one being the computational analysis of that data.
Implications for future development are discussed.
Keywords:
Computational simulation, Temperature, Urban morphology, Design decision
Introduction
The urban planner must have clear goals and objectives so that, from them, coherent
proposals can be made for a given city. The detailed study of environmental and
climatic characteristics of each place plays an active role on this process of decision,
design and planning of concrete proposals. Considering regionalism is essential for a
successful environmental planning.
This view coincides with
sustainable actions, since
the idea is to promote local development of opportunities, taking advantage of each
region to consolidate the role of small and medium urban centres. The focus of these
actions is to choose the best configuration so that regeneration can have a positive
impact on the life experience outdoors. The actions of climate change scientists and
policy makers on urban areas are just beginning, but with a large gap in time, as pointed
in Mills et al (2010) and Grimmond et al. (2010).
Urban areas are known to promote the formation of heat islands, with the consequent
increase in energy consumption for air conditioning in warm weather conditions. In
