Pedestrian Comfort & Microclimate Studies

Pedestrian Comfort

Our pedestrian comfort and wind microclimate services can help predict the annual effect of wind around your site on pedestrians when using external amenity spaces such as pavements, outdoor seating, gardens and other such green spaces. 

We can help you carry out detailed analysis of the site from conceptual stage to ensure that the design incorporates  the best wind mitigation features to minimise unwanted flow accelerations and ensure comfort and safety thresholds are met.  We can carry out a virtual wind tunnel analysis of the site, incorporating detailed terrain shape and surrounding buildings within the CFD model to provide the best representation of air flow around the site. 

We can predict the year round air speeds expected at any point on the site, also helping to demonstrate compliance with pedestrian comfort and safety criterion, such as Lawson’s Criteria, and fulfilling GSAS requirements.

Key features of the service include:

•  Analysing your site for a combination of wind speeds and wind directions.  Results will be extrapolated as per the local weather data to predict the annual wind distribution
• Checking for compliance with the popular Lawson Pedestrian Comfort criterion
• Ability to couple external and internal simulations
• Analysis for infiltration control at building entrances
• Access to 3D CAD models of the actual buildings surrounding the project buildings to more effectively analyse the impact
• Check for compliance with other regulations and mandatory requirements, i.e. for planning applications

Heat Island Effect

Advanced CFD simulations can also be performed to analyse the thermal comfort for pedestrians combining air flow and solar exposure. This type of analysis is designed to tackle the effects of solar reflections on pedestrians and study shading strategies to maximise use of space around buildings for use by food and beverage businesses. Some major features of the analysis are:

• Can be used as a powerful master planning tool
• Compare air flow patterns around existing structures to proposed designs
• Check for air stagnation and potential heat build-up
• Check for compliance with regulations and mandatory requirements
• Analyse the effect of surface properties like reflectivity, emissivity and transmissivity for buildings, ground, vegetation and other such landscape features and their interaction with pedestrians
• Design shading elements and external cooling systems

Related Projects

Latest work from our consultancy team