The contributions gathered in this book are from the eponymous international symposium held in Paris in 2019. They discuss the relationship that drawing, design and the project, understood here as a ...triad, have with the transformation of places. Drawing on a range of disciplines - architecture, urban planning, landscape design, geography and the visual arts - the authors explore the practices and tools adopted in the processes of representing and reconfiguring open spaces, and in the development of spatial projects for newly emerging territories. More specifically, the authors examine the role and future of drawing and non-discursive representation in contemporary socio-spatial transition processes.
The outdoor thermal environment correlates with occupant behaviors in open spaces. The appropriate range of thermal environment that is conducive to outdoor activities, however, remains inadequately ...defined. Existing studies fail to characterize the behavioral responses to thermal environments in important dimensions including activity types, age or gender. We conducted field studies on six open spaces in Wuhan, China, a city with humid subtropical climate and ideal for this research. Data based on field observations, questionnaires, and measurement were collected under a variety of weather conditions over 4 years. We renovated a playground by adding shading shelters and vegetation cover to reduce summertime heat stress. On-site thermal environment were assessed using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI). Findings are as following: the outdoor thermal environment is a strong predictor of mean attendance over a period of time, but not spontaneous occupancy at a specific time or space; the Optimum Thermal Environment (OTE), defined as the range in which an open space is well-attended (attendance above 90% of peak value), is more consistent than the self-reported Thermal Acceptable Range (TAR) in this study. Behavioral responses to thermal environment differ by gender, age, and types of activities. The experiment confirmed the causality between outdoor thermal environment and activities: the renovated playground attracted 80% more occupants in summer; people stayed longer, reported less heat stress, and interacted with each other more often. Results remained significant after controlling for weather, air quality, daily and weekly routines. Findings had implications for the design of open spaces.
•The outdoor thermal environment is a strong predictor of mean attendance not spontaneous ones.•We developed the concept of Optimum Thermal Environment for outdoor activities.•Behavioral responses to thermal environment differ by gender, age, and types of activities.•The renovated playground become a more comfortable, attractive and socially interactive place.•Open space should feature thermal environments conducive to intended activities and users.
Urban open spaces (UOS) are crucial for urban life, offering benefits across individual and societal levels. However, the understanding of the systematic dynamic of UOS scaling with city size and its ...potential non-linear performance remains a limited clarity area. This study bridges this gap by integrating urban scaling laws with remote sensing data from 1990 to 2020, creating a framework to analyze UOS trends in China. Our findings reveal that UOS growth is sub-linear scaling with city size, exhibiting economies of scale with scaling exponents between 0.55 and 0.65 and suggesting potential shortages. The distribution structure of UOS across cities is becoming increasingly balanced, as indicated by the rising Zipf's slope from 0.66 to 0.88. Southeastern coastal cities outperform, highlighting spatial variations and path dependency in UOS development. Additionally, using metrics of Scale-adjusted metropolitan indicator (SAMI) and the ratio of open space consumption to population growth rates (OCRPGR), we observe a trend towards more coordinated development between UOS and population, with a declining proportion of uncoordinated cities. Our long-term, large sample coverage study of UOS in China may offer positive significance for urban ecological planning and management in similar rapidly urbanizing countries, contributing to critical insights for quantifying and monitoring urban sustainable development.
This study aims to identify outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) differences between two ethnic groups (Chinese (CG) and Pakistani (PG)) with different thermal perception and thermal adaption backgrounds on ...a campus in Xi'an, a city in the cold region of China. A thermal comfort questionnaire was conducted simultaneous with meteorological measurements in five typical campus open spaces during winter, spring and summer. The Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) was approximated as a thermal index to detect differences between CG and PG at a neutral temperature, neutral temperature range, preferred temperature, thermal acceptability range and thermal adaptation behaviors. Results demonstrated that: (1) Clothing insulation of PG was lower than that of CG among seasons. (2) The globe temperature (Tg) was the primary correlate of thermal comfort for both groups (ρCG = 0.866 and ρPG = 0.744). (3) The neutral UTCI of PG (22.4 °C) was higher than that of CG (20.4 °C). The preferred UTCI of PG (19.8 °C) was 3.5 °C lower than that of CG (23.3 °C). The neutral UTCI range of PG (16.2–28.6 °C) was higher and wider compared to that of CG (15.1–25.7 °C). (4) The thermal acceptability range of PG (12.9–28.9 °C) was wider than that of CG (15.8–28.5 °C). (5) PG managed thermal discomfort with clothing and hot/cold drinks as appropriate, while CG preferred changing location and appropriate clothing. Our results show that cross-cultural differences in thermal comfort should affect recommendations for open spaces design on multicultural campuses in China's cold region.
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•We investigated cross-cultural thermal comfort differences in open spaces on a campus in Xi’an, China.•Neutral UTCI of CG was 20.4 °C while 23.3 °C was preferred with neutral UTCI ranging from 15.1 to 25.7 °C.•Neutral UTCI of PG was 22.4 °C while 19.8 °C was preferred with neutral UTCI ranging from 16.2 to 28.6 °C.•Thermal acceptability range for CG was 15.8–28.5 °C and for PG was 12.9–28.9 °C.•PG managed thermal discomfort with clothing and drinks, while CG preferred changing locations and suitable clothing.
This report aims to clarify the actual use of small-scale open spaces in densely built-up area and element which affects its usage situation in Kyojima2,3, Sumida. We researched their usage situation ...and resident needs by field survey, interview, and questionnaire. As a result, resident don’t use small-scale open spaces because they are small and resident don’t have things to do at there. On the other hand, some of them are used. They are large and have facilities and events. And they are located along the main street. Consequently, size, their facilities and location affect their usage situation.
Atmospheric-pressure non-equilibrium plasma jets (APNP-Js), which generate plasma in open space rather than in a confined discharge gap, have recently been a topic of great interest. In this paper, ...the development of APNP-Js will be reviewed. Firstly, the APNP-Js are grouped based on the type of gas used to ignite them and their characteristics are discussed in detail. Secondly, one of the most interesting phenomena of APNP-Js, the 'plasma bullet', is discussed and its behavior described. Thirdly, the very recent developments on the behavior of plasma jets when launched in a controlled environment and pressure are also introduced. This is followed by a discussion on the interaction between plasma jets. Finally, perspectives on APNP-J research are presented.
Vernacular building spaces are key elements in adjusting thermal environment of buildings and thermal adaptation of residents. This paper analyzed the comprehensive influence of building spaces on ...the thermal environment, thermal adaptation behaviors and thermal responses of residents. Regarding the indoor and semi-open spaces of vernacular buildings in arid climate areas of Turpan, China, a one-year survey of building thermal environment and residents' thermal comfort was conducted. It was found that the thermal environment of indoor and semi-open spaces is substantially different, which provides comfortable living spaces for residents at different times. And the thermal adaptation behaviors were closely related to the building spaces. In addition, residents have different thermal comfort in indoor and semi-open spaces, including the neutral temperature, the acceptable temperature and preferred temperature. Among them, the neutral temperature differences in transitional seasons and summer were 1.1 °C and 0.9 °C, respectively. The differences in the value of 80% acceptable temperature were 2.2 °C and 2.7 °C, respectively; and the difference in preferred temperature was 1.6 °C in summer. Further analysis showed that the thermal environment of vernacular buildings in Turpan affected residents' thermal adaptation behavior and thermal comfort. The results indicated that the diverse spaces of vernacular buildings in Turpan can create different thermal environmental conditions for buildings and can stimulate thermal adaptation behaviors of residents, thereby improving residents’ thermal comfort and thermal adaptability.
Kleinschroth and Kowarik discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the vital importance of urban greenspaces as an essential quality-of-life element in sustainable cities. While visual access to ...greenspace alone can be beneficial, they focus on the physical use of urban greenspace. They hypothesized that during the COVID-19 lockdowns, short-distance outdoor activities were likely to be even more popular than before the pandemic because of the perceived constraints of the various stay-at-home orders and lockdowns. The acute COVID-19 crisis underscores the importance of preserving and further developing urban green infrastructure. Many people have suggested that the world will be fundamentally changed by the experience of the crisis; we urge that expanded development of urban greenspaces be part of that change.
Abstract
Quezon City is the largest city in the National Capital Region (NCR) composed of different districts. This study looked at the history of Quezon City and explored the potential of one of its ...districts, the Lifestyle-Tourism District. The aim is to identify the open spaces in the district and develop a methodology to classify them and determine their functions. The different open spaces are identified based on the adapted definitions from related literature. The open spaces are classified into typologies based on surface cover, accessibility, and functions. The functions of the typologies of open space are then determined based on the sociocultural services they can provide. The study found there are few open space typologies in the northern part of the district compared to the southern area where there is a degree of concentration of open spaces. The combined open spaces and their sociocultural services in the Lifestyle-Tourism District could strengthen the lifestyle and tourism components and gain the potential to serve as an intangible remnant of the original Frost-Arellano Plan.
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