Climate in Urban Design

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INTRODUCTION Climate is a critical component in the planning of towns, buildings and settlement designs. Urban developments affect local and regional climate change, which can lead to a feedback influence on the comfort of living. These impacts can result in urban planning based on climate impacts and are primarily responsible for the urban structural design in varying climatic regions. Urban areas in the tropics, for example, vary largely from those in the Middle East or in polar regions. This is important in understanding the reasoning behind the urban structural design transition that occurs among these climatic regions. Urban design is often a result of the interactions between climate and humans in various kinds of environments. BACKGROUND A primary concern of urban designers is the comfort of living spaces in which people dwell, which means that climate must be taken account for. There are globally spread examples where particular climate patterns compliment living spaces. Hot, humid regions are found primarily in a band up to latitudes 10-15° north and south of the equator and include mainly developing or Third World countries. It is estimated that more than 40 per cent of the world’s population lives in this equatorial belt (de Blij and Muller, 1994). In these countries, the majority of the population cannot afford modern solutions to climatic stress, such as air conditioning; therefore, it is appropriate to solve climatic problems for the built environment as inexpensively as possible by optimizing climatic building response. Although the hot, humid region can be subdivided into numerous zones, there are common climatic characteristics that pertain to creating a comfortable built environment. Most significant are the persistently high ambient air temperatures which average about 27°C annually and vary only 1-3°C within 1 month (Givoni, 1989).
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