IES Consulting were appointed to perform a pedestrian comfort analysis for this mixed-used development in Dublin, Ireland.
The project considered the annual effect of wind around existing buildings on the site, as well as analysing the impact of proposed new buildings to the development. The intention of the study was to demonstrate that the proposed buildings would not have a negative impact on pedestrian comfort around the site, in order to help the client meet planning approval requirements.
The consultants performed eight steady state CFD simulations for both the existing and proposed buildings to determine the local air speeds for various locations around the site. The results from these simulations were extrapolated using local weather data for the site to test compliance against the Lawson Pedestrian Comfort/Safety criterion. This is the most widely used standard for assessing pedestrian comfort and safety conditions in external areas.
The study demonstrated that the safety criteria was satisfied for both the existing and proposed buildings across all locations for the entire year.
Although the comfort criteria for sitting was exceeded for four locations around the existing buildings and five locations for the proposed buildings - due to the acceleration of air speed for the predominant wind directions at these locations - interventions were proposed to alleviate these issues.