The contribution of bioclimatic architecture in the improvement of outdoor urban spaces - Solar Energy Sciences and Engineering Applications - page 631

Figure 19.3.2 The outdoor spaces improvement procedure.

is depicted in Figure 19.3.2. In general the overall procedure is split into three major
parallel activities: (i) field measurements; (ii) pedestrians and users' subjective comfort
analysis; and (iii) outdoor space typology and characteristics. Specific indicators are
then extracted and the outdoor comfort is assessed.
Indicatively, the following studies can be found:

• An urban park in Cairo (Egypt) close to the city centre was monitored by Mah-

moud (2011). The author performed a series of field measurements coupled with
the distribution of survey questionnaires to park visitors in order to assess their
thermal comfort in a subjective and objective way. The study divided the park
into six zones according to their activities and characteristics; i.e. peak zone, spine
zone, entrance plaza zone, fountain zone, lake zone, canopy zone, pavement, seat-
ing and cascade zones. A total of 300 questionnaires from various zones of the
park were collected measuring the subjective thermal sensation votes (TSV) as well
as the calculated physiologically equivalent temperature (PET). During the hot sea-
son, maximum dissatisfaction was found in the spine, peak, seating and fountain
spaces. The most preferred zones were: seating, pavement, canopy, fountain and
cascade zones in terms of thermal comfort sensation.