Microclimatic comfort measurements evaluation of building physics: The effect of building form and building settled area, on pedestrian level comfort around buildings

Abstract

Wind discomfort and the dangers that the wind may lead can be harmful in terms of comfort conditions of both indoor and outdoor environment of the building/buildings to be constructed or just completed. The extent of discomfort to pedestrian varies from inducing slightly unpleasant feeling to producing a falling down hazard. Typically, the cause of frequent occurrences of strong wind at pedestrian area is primary related to the configuration of building structures and/or topography in the vicinity of the pedestrian area. Depending on the characteristics of the wind including magnitude, uniformity, ambient temperature, and so on, the level of disturbance to users of pedestrian areas can be different. In this context, the regions where Necmettin Erbakan University temporary education buildings are located have a fairly intensive topography in terms of wind. Therefore, detailed analysis of the inside regions and the surrounding areas of education buildings in particular are performed in terms of microclimatic comfort and indoor energy recovery. Especially, the topography where university campus temporary educational buildings are located has very high wind climate conditions compared to the city of Konya climate conditions. In this study, pedestrian-level wind conditions around N.E.U. campus buildings and in urban areas and the topography of campus settlements were analyzed through on-site measurement with Delta OHM microclimatic instruments. The purpose of this study is to investigate the pedestrian-level comfort conditions around the project buildings suggested by concept architects together with microclimatic measurements of comfort conditions, in the light of current topographic and climatic conditions presented by the head architect. However, presentation of these topographic and microclimatic measurements around currently completed temporary classrooms of the university campus have not yet been completed. The topography of the university campus, which is at an altitude higher than that of Konya centrum, is exposed to an extremely high wind velocity. The pedestrian-level comfort conditions are measured using Delta OHM instrument. The study also aims to compare pedestrian-level comfort conditions at locations of various buildings. In addition, outdoor comfort survey was also conducted in the campus area. However, measurement results of the microclimatic measurement device, DeltaOHM, are evaluated in this study. It can be observed from the results that pedestrian-level comfort of current campus settlements around the buildings reach very discomforting levels. Since the university’s topography varies between very high and very low temperature levels and wind velocity values, climatic comfort problems are observed in the area. Some reasons for the discomfort problems observed in current settlement are; incorrect use of climatic parameters, incorrect directions of buildings, thermal effects due incorrect selection of materials used in constructions of buildings. In order to achieve thermal comfort, more studies are required on pedestrian-level comfort, use of passive design techniques such as correct direction of buildings and correct selection of materials utilized in the buildings based on their thermal effects. This would help university campus buildings consume less energy and maximize people’s satisfaction.