Cooling Effect of Shaded Open Spaces on Long-term Outdoor Comfort by Evaluation of UTCI Index in two Universities of Tehran

Environmental matters are more complicated. Sustainability of environment requires an integrated approach to decisions making, planning, and management. Therefore, there is a need for a professional and systematic environmental management approach to reducing the consumption of resources. This approach is generally lacking in most universities, and therefore achievement of sustainability becomes much more difficult. This paper focuses on the comparative study of the effects of the sky view factor (SVF) on mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) and the thermal indices derived from these parameters in two different universities in Tehran: IUST and University of Amir-Kabir. The outdoor thermal conditions of these campuses because of different levels of greenery in spring and summer create different conditions in terms of thermal comfort or thermal stress. In this paper, environmental data by the experimental approach(field measurment) and they were analyzed by statical manner. The authors calculated UTCI by the UTCI calculator as thermal stress in the spring and summer of 2015. Subsequently, by decreasing the sky view factor by a value of 0.4 (increasing the shaded spaces), the mean radiant temperature will decrease by 3.04°C. These changes of Tmrt effect on the reduction of UTCI values. Comparison of UTCI index in two campuses illustrate that on average, there is a 1.28°C difference on the UTCI index and in September the IUST campus is 2.72°C cooler on the UTCI scale. The results of this study give correct guidelines to designers to create much more shaded open spaces to reach sustainable environment in universities.

Keywords:

University Campuses , Shaded Open Spaces , Thermal Comfort , UTCI