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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
This study aims to examine the relationship between urban densification and pedestrian thermal comfort at different times of the year, and to understand how this can impact patterns of activity in downtown areas. The focus of the research is on plazas in the urban core of downtown Tempe, given their importance to the pedestrian landscape. With that in mind, the research question for the study is: how does the microclimate of a densifying urban core affect thermal comfort in plazas at different times of the year? Based on the data, I argue that plazas in downtown Tempe are not maximally predisposed to pedestrian thermal comfort in the summer or the fall. Thus, the proposed intervention to improve thermal comfort in downtown Tempe’s plazas is the implementation of decision support tools focused on education, community engagement, and thoughtful building designs for heat safety.
Inspired by this palate of lively, idiosyncratic street designs—created out of necessity by people making-do—this project seeks to bring identity, value, and vitality to this challenging human environment.
This project uses concepts and processes of disturbance ecology and ecological succession, specifically the role played by pioneer species and biological legacies in the immediate aftermath of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, to develop an urban revitalization plan for Buckeye Road.
This study investigates the impact of urban form and landscaping type on the mid-afternoon microclimate in semi-arid Phoenix, Arizona. The goal is to find effective urban form and design strategies to ameliorate temperatures during the summer months. We simulated near-ground air temperatures for typical residential neighborhoods in Phoenix using the three-dimensional microclimate model ENVI-met. The model was validated using weather observations from the North Desert Village (NDV) landscape experiment, located on the Arizona State University's Polytechnic campus. The NDV is an ideal site to determine the model's input parameters, since it is a controlled environment recreating three prevailing residential landscape types in the Phoenix metropolitan area (mesic, oasis, and xeric). After validation, we designed five neighborhoods with different urban forms that represent a realistic cross-section of typical residential neighborhoods in Phoenix. The scenarios follow the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification scheme after Stewart and Oke. We then combined the neighborhoods with three landscape designs and, using ENVI-met, simulated microclimate conditions for these neighborhoods for a typical summer day. Results were analyzed in terms of mid-afternoon air temperature distribution and variation, ventilation, surface temperatures, and shading. Findings show that advection is important for the distribution of within-design temperatures and that spatial differences in cooling are strongly related to solar radiation and local shading patterns. In mid-afternoon, dense urban forms can create local cool islands. Our approach suggests that the LCZ concept is useful for planning and design purposes.