Influence of Summer Outdoor Pedestrian Wind Environment Comfort with Height-to-Width Ratios of Arcade in Taiwan

Abstract

Arcade, a regional architecture style in Taiwan, is gradually replaced by sidewalk with the prevailing global trends of architecture design, thereby bringing greater challenges to pedestrians comfort. Past researches suggest optimal urban wind regime can mitigate heat island effect and enhance pedestrians comfort level. Therefore, the relationship between arcade and pedestrian wind comfort as well as the influence of arcade’s height-to-width ratios (H/W) on urban wind environment are worth a thorough research. This study takes Farglory Kyoto Community as the example. Arcades in three varied sizes are compared: In Case 1, height-to-width ratio (H/W) =1.25; Case 2(H/W=1.54); Case 3(H/W=0.75). In Aug 2016, field measurement was conducted comparable anal++ysis on outdoor environmental comfort. The field measurement result indicates that, wind environment is more stable for arcade than sidewalk, and that air temperature of arcade is 3.9 °C lower than sidewalk, thereby concluding arcade tends to generate more pedestrian wind comfort in summer. The measurement result of Thermo GEAR G100EXD suggests, during the hottest time at noon, the difference between air temperature on sidewalk and on arcade reaches 8 °C. This study also proves that in subtropical climates, arcade is more likely to provide pedestrians with higher comfort level, and that air temperature on arcade is 3.9°C lower than outdoors. The lower the height-to-width ratio is, the more comfortable the environment appears to be.