Individually Supervised Research Project

The liveliness of the city protects by the outdoor places where people gather, such as bus stands, marketplaces and other open spaces. The quality of outdoor spaces become the highest discussible topic in the current era due to rapid urbanization and climate change in the world. The usage of outdoor spaces, the efficiency of the city and the quality of outdoor spaces will be directly affected by the outdoor thermal comfort of those places. The rapid urbanization and the urban heat island effect causes the decrease of outdoor thermal comfort of the city. The outdoor thermal comfort of the city can be identified as the people’s satisfaction with the thermal environment of the city. Therefore, this study aims to provide an understanding of the current thermal environment of the outdoor gathering places in Kandy city core by simulating the climate factors and the personal factors which affect the outdoor thermal comfort, by using ENVI met - a holistic 3D microclimate model and preliminary surveys conducted via online platform and observation survey. Climate factors used to run the simulation are, hourly temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, average wind speed, cloud cover and the personal factors used for the analysis are ISO standard human data of the metabolic rate and clothing insulation. By the guidance of the online survey and observation survey Kandy central market area, the Good Shed Bus stand area, and the clock tower bus stand area were identified as a commonly used gathering places during the day. The results of this analysis can be utilized for creating OTC (outdoor thermal comfort) based guide-lines for urban development while highlighting the factor of considering requirements of people and qualities of local climate should be carefully considered when designing outdoor gathering places in future cities.

Keywords: Outdoor thermal comfort (OTC); outdoor gathering places; Mean radiant temperature(MRT); Relative humidity; wind speed