Climate-responsive design guidelines: Urban design guidelines to improve outdoor thermal comfort in the southern shore area of Singapore

Abstract

Climate change and rising temperatures are crucial challenges the whole world need to manage, especially the fast growing cities. Climate-responsive design can be one of the tools to address this challenge. This report presents the potential contribution of climate-responsive design guidelines towards the development of a comfortable microclimate for pedestrians. The guidelines are tailored to the tropical climate, and more specific, to the southern shore area of Singapore. The ultimate goal is to support architects and urban designers with additional information on the basics of climate-responsive design during the early design stages. However, these are not rigid rules, but recommendations that open up options for more climate responsive solutions. The guidelines are based on a comprehensive assessment of the outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) of various urban design strategies. For the assessment, numerical climate models and statistical risk approaches have been used. The results are analyzed through specific metrics and scores that take into account the spatial and temporal performance of the OTC. In order to use the climate-responsive design guidelines, this reports gives an overview of the thermal comfort performance and effectiveness of each strategy. The urban design strategies covered in this report are limited to passive solutions in relation to urban geometry and vegetation.