Heat Island

Urban Heat Island Effect, Urban Morphology and Building Energy

The goal of the present research is to study and investigate the impact of urban climate and urban design for predicting building energy. The aim is to provide a tool to architects/ urban designers to evaluate the impact of the external conditions upon their design and appraise the influence of their design on external conditions by referring to existing urban microclimate studies. The building energy investigation is correlated with the role of microclimatic changes and the organization of buildings in a climate responsive way to minimize consumption. An attempt has been made to enhance the architect's role towards building design with more informed choices at an urban micro scale.

The urban-rural and intra-urban microclimatic variation was investigated based on measured weather data for Chicago in the year 2004.The sensitivity analysis of a street geometry was performed to investigate the consequences on annual building energy consumption during summer and winter months. The street geometry dealt with the street aspect ratio and street orientation. The building energy was predicted for three microclimates in Chicago area using three representative weather stations. The role of street geometry on building energy conservation and the climatically appropriate built-up area density was investigated on the basis of its shading potential.

The strategy for climate responsive urban block development using the street geometry is suggested for enhancing the energy saving strategies at building scale, which further applies to the meso-scale.