Integrated improvement of occupants' comfort in urban areas during outdoor events

Abstract

Outdoor public spaces contribute to improve the quality of life in urban areas available for outdoor activities, leisure and social interactions. The vitality and the functionality of outdoor urban spaces depend significantly on comfort conditions of people in these places. For this reason, the analysis of comfort conditions in urban public environments is important also in relation to the intended use of the considered spaces.Almost all the studies about outdoor comfort mainly focus on the thermal comfort; other surveys consider aspects, such as acoustic and visual quality. However, generally thermal, acoustic and visual comfort conditions are treated separately. There are cases in which it is appropriate to deal with the three aspects simultaneously (e.g. spaces for temporary urban events), in order to guarantee global comfort of the occupants. To enhance simultaneously acoustic, lighting and thermal comfort conditions of an outdoor public environment, an integrated approach is provided and a simple, innovative and low cost solution is studied. The suggested solution is a system of suspended modular and temporary white acoustic sails appropriately positioned during outdoor entertainment events on summer. The particular case study of Matteotti Square in Città di Castello, Italy is analyzed. The results showed that an improvement on global comfort conditions of the square may be obtained through the use of proper architectural solutions and materials, which additionally result easily applicable to similar (for issues, geometry and destination of use) outdoor environments.