Microclimate Conditions and Space Use Variations

This paper is a part of study about the impact of the microclimate on the space use and the user’s behaviours. The purpose of our study is to get an in-depth understanding of how people use out door public spaces in different climatic conditions, how their behaviour and perception of the space change with the climatic variations. We have employed a multi-method approach which combines a qualitative and quantitative analysis. Three squares were chosen as a setting for either a video observations, climatic measurement and interviews with the users. The whole investigations were conducted one day in winter 2009 and one day in summer 2010. The result of the qualitative and the quantitative analysis revealed that the climate variables played very different roles in predicting the use mode and density of the three squares in the two seasonal periods.

Keywords:

Microclimate conditions , space use , measurement , video observations , interviews