Urban heat-mitigating building form and façade framework

Abstract

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is one of the most critical issues for dense urban environments; building forms and facades increase this effect and building energy use intensity (EUI). This research hypothesizes that by using a design-based approach, a new generation of climate-responsive building forms and facades can be developed that balance the outdoor and indoor environments and minimize the UHI effect. A novel design workflow is proposed to integrate UHI mitigation strategies, urban microclimate simulation methods, and building performance optimization techniques during the early stages of the architectural design process, employing elements such as parametric modeling and objective optimization. As a proof of concept, redesigning a 56-storey core and shell office tower in downtown Chicago, IL is found to improve outdoor thermal comfort by up to 1.26°C, EUI by 0.79 kWh/m², and unusable daylight by 50.90%, as compared to the existing design.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban microclimate
• urban heat mitigation
• performance simulation
• evolutionary search algorithm
• core and shell office tower
• building form and facade

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).