Investigating the effect of the physical layout of the architecture of high-rise buildings, residential complexes, and urban heat islands

Abstract

Improper development of land uses in the city leads to climate changes, resulting in an increase in GW and the formation of UHIs. These changes have adverse effects on people's level of comfort. This research is supposed to extract the optimal model by proving the relationship between the physical arrangement of the architecture of high-rise buildings in residential complexes and reducing the adverse effects of this. Therefore, in this research, four models of solitary, environmental, combined, and rowly block arrangement were investigated based on numerical calculation methods and CFD simulation. These simulations were done by ENVI-meto software based on air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and thermal comfort in the open space. The results showed that the type of physical arrangement of buildings can increase air temperature for GW by up to 3 °C and UHIs by 0.5 °C. The combined pattern is the most optimal in this section due to its more compact structure than the solitary pattern. Regarding the effect of relative humidity on climate changes, the solitary pattern has the lowest percentage of relative humidity compared to other patterns due to more air circulation in its physical structure. Also, the type of physical arrangement of buildings can improve the wind speed for GW by up to 0.2 m/s and for UHIs by up to 0.7 m/s. Based on this, the most optimal model is the environmental pattern, because the physical structures of the buildings are an obstacle in wind circulation. The fluctuation range of the PMV index for the intensity of GW effects on thermal comfort, is 0.7°, and the fluctuation range of this index for the power of UHIs is about 0.2°. The solitary pattern is the most optimal pattern to reduce the severity of adverse effects of GW and UHIs; this is due to the scattered distribution of blocks in this pattern. In general, according to the research findings, it can be concluded that the most optimal pattern to reduce the severity of the adverse effects of GW is solitary and environmental patterns, and to reduce the severity of the negative impact of UHIs, the solitary pattern is used.