Pedestrian Thermal Comfort in Relation to Street Zones with Different Orientations - A Pilot-Study of Rotterdam

This paper presents the impacts of different street orientations and street zones of a typical Dutch residential area on micro-scale human thermal comfort. The spatial and temporal variation of mean radiant temperature (T mrt ) of a typical summer day in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, is simulated by using an established long- and short-wave 3D radiation fluxes model (SOLWEIG). This model calculates human radiation load and expresses this as a T mrt . Hereby we simulate and analyse the T mrt variations for three zones of a street consisting of a centre area for cars and the adjacent pedestrian zones for pedestrians and bicycles. The streets are azimuth rotated. The simulation and analysis results show various T mrt patterns of the three zones in the different orientations at different periods during daytime. We show that the spatial distribution of T mrt at street level strongly depends on street orientation and street zone. This is crucial since optimizing street configuration will directly influence the human thermal comfort in relation to street orientation and street zone. Finally we present a time adjusted framework of thermal comfort and classify the various T mrt for each zone and orientation.