Environmental Effects from Pocket Park Design According to District Planning Patterns—Cases from Xi’an, China

Abstract

Rapid urban expansion leads to the continuous deterioration of the urban thermal environment, which endangers the sustainable development of the city; meanwhile, countries all over the world are becoming increasingly interested in the mitigating effects of urban green spaces on heat islands. In this context, many studies show that pocket parks play an important role in optimizing the thermal environment of urban blocks, especially with the high-intensity development of urban blocks. Moreover, many cities in China have become mature, and it is difficult to open up large green areas. Therefore, to improve the urban thermal environment in summer, it is necessary to adapt to an efficient pocket-park design strategy in blocks. To consider the impact of block development intensity on the design strategy of pocket parks, three pocket parks in blocks with different floor-area ratios in the central area of Xi’an were selected as examples. This research compares the effects of tree density and green-space layout on the thermal environment in different floor-area ratio districts on a summer day using environmental simulation (ENVI-met). The results show that the design strategies of pocket parks in urban blocks with different development intensities are different. High tree density performs better from the perspective of improving the urban thermal environment. For the low and medium development intensity blocks, the effects of the open green space and closed green space are similar, while the open green space layout can significantly improve thermal comfort in high-intensity development blocks.