The role of outdoor courtyard design variables in microclimate performance: a review

ABSTRACT

Courtyards are receiving increased research attention due to their potential to moderate outdoor microclimates adjacent to buildings. Scholars have used various methods to analyse the environmental function of the courtyard. Nevertheless, efforts to examine design variants and their interplay in different climate zones is limited. This paper presents a thorough examination of prior research on how outdoor courtyard design factors impact microclimate performance in various climates. Determinant variables such as courtyard geometry, orientation, surface materials and natural elements like vegetation and water features were reviewed and analysed to identify their influence on the shading, natural ventilation and outdoor thermal comfort of courtyards. This review identifies and highlights research gaps concerning the effect of design variables on outdoor microclimate performance in different climate zones. The outcomes have the potential to be of immense value to both researchers and urban planners, serving as a guide for current designs and future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Courtyard microclimate
• design variables
• outdoor thermal comfort
• urban climate
• natural ventilation
• design guidance

Acknowledgements

This article is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation in China (No: 51878286), the State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science in China (No: 2016 KB09) and the Chinese Scholarship Council.

Disclosure statement

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

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability statement

The data that supports the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Shuang LIU: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Methodology, Investigation, Conceptualization. David J. SAILOR: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Supervision. Xiao Shan FANG: Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition, Supervision. Ren zhi WU: Writing – review & editing.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chinese Government Scholarship: [Grant Number ]; National Natural Science Foundation in China: [Grant Number 51878286]; State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science: [Grant Number 2016-KB09]; U.S. Department of Energy: [Grant Number DE-SC0023520].