Abstract Summary
In urban design, outdoor comfort is intricately linked to the overall sensory perception, or sense-scape, of the spatial realm, which can be described through human perception and physical metrics. Seen through a physical lens, outdoor comfort relates to the interplay between environmental factors such as sound, wind, climate, and smell, and urban form and landscape design. Urban areas in the vicinity of airports and flight paths possess a distinct sensescape, characterized by the visibility and audibility of airplanes. Visual and auditory appraisal of urban areas near airports is further complemented, and potentially influenced, by environmental indicators independent from aviation, such as temperature, humidity, and wind flow. To what extent urban form and landscape design affect the sound- and sensescape of such areas is yet not well understood. This research gap formed the starting point for the Urban Comfort Lab in 2020. The lab comprised a field lab built from shipping containers stacked around three courtyards, simulating three street/building typologies at full-scale. Although focussing foremost on the influence of urban design aircraft noise and the sound environment, climatic and air quality were studied in parallel. During the first phase of the project urban form and shifted to urban greenery in the second phase. Adopting a data-based approach, the lab’s constituent studies focussed on physical parameters, and in for one study, in relation to human perception and physiology. In this session, results are presented for various separate acoustic, climate, air quality and cross-disciplinary studies, all relating to the Urban Comfort Lab, particularly, to urban greenery.
