The potential of a tree to increase comfort hours in campus public space design

Abstract

The rising global temperatures have led people to avoid outdoor activities, especially during the day in tropical countries, because of the high average temperatures when the comfort hours are relatively low. This problem has led to higher indoor energy consumption, health problems, and problems in social interaction. One way to encourage people to use outdoor public spaces is to design them to increase their comfort hours. This study focused on increasing the number of comfort hours through the influence of trees as one of the green infrastructure and using simulation methods in the ENVI-met version 4 program. For the simulation, we gathered field data for the correction of weather data from a weather station representing 52 weeks at the outdoor space in the Faculty of Engineering campus, Chiang Mai University, which is a target area for development from the campus policy. The alternative design was created by adding a Millingtonia hortensis, a local plant for the location. The results showed that a single large tree strongly influenced annual comfort hours in campus outdoor public spaces. The simulation results throughout 52 weeks showed that a tree increases by 7.37% in comfort hours while an 8.65% decrease in overheating hours. This study can provide an alternative approach for designing public spaces on campuses and encourage the use of more effective design in the future.

Keywords

• Outdoor thermal comfort
• Comfort hours
• Campus public space
• Physiological Equivalent Temperature
• Green infrastructure