Field study of human thermal perception in urban parks in Singapore

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to investigate human thermal perception and the effect of wind speed on human thermal comfort in urban parks in Singapore. Physical measurements were taken and questionnaire surveys were used to assess the thermal perception of subjects. A total of 770 subjects from six urban parks participated in the survey. Thermal acceptability assessment shows that 83.4% of the subjects were satisfied with the outdoor thermal environment in urban parks. The neutral temperature was 28.7°C and the range of acceptable temperature was 26.3–31.1°C. Correlation analysis was performed to find out the most significant factors that influence human thermal comfort sensation. The comfortable wind speed was 1.63 m/s for a typical thermal environment condition in urban parks, which is much higher than the mean wind speed of 0.96 m/s recorded in this study, indicating that wind speeds in urban parks are not high enough to create a comfortable thermal comfort condition for visitors. This study provides a link between the theoretical knowledge on human thermal perception and the practical urban design process. The results contribute to the urban design or planning practice to provide an appropriate thermal comfort condition in urban parks to attract more visitors to the parks.