Urban Design Urban Design saves Energy ...

Sustainable urban development – what does that mean? In Germany cities have been built already. New neighborhoods rarely arise, new cities are usually planned and implemented in Asia. But what is actually called sustainable urban planning? And why this is also interesting for existing cities in intermediate climates?

The sustainable urban development reflects the holistic view of the planning task. The high complexity between construction, buiding law, outdoor comfort and traffic demands – a weighting of many measures. In addition, buildings should be highly energy efficient and ensure a high profitability.

A sustainable city provides comfort and identification for residents, produces little traffic, noise and air pollution and provides relaxation as well as cultural stimulation. In terms of sustainable planning the reduction of the degree of sealing and the albedo (a measure of the reflectivity of surfaces) can be added. The heat island effect therefore can be lowered and summer smog and heat-related incidents be reduced.

Urban development contributes directly to the thermal comfort in the outer space. For example, strong air flow can arise in streets or protected areas in courtyards or squares. Depending on the climate more or less sunlight or ventilation is required.

Thermal comfort is understood as a mixture between activity, clothing, air velocity and air humidity and can be expressed in various indices. An important indicator is the so-called operating temperature influenced by air temperature and the radiation and therfore also through heat emission of the surrounding surfaces.

The expected thermal comfort of people in outdoor spaces nowadays can easily be estimated by simulation of the microclimate even during the early planning phase. Optmisation therfore can easily be done accordingly.

Town planning does not only affect thermal comfort in the outer space directly, but also the energy performance of adjacent buildings. The density of buildings in particular, the surface condition of streets, squares and buildings, and the ventilation of the urban district play an important role. Depending on the direct solar incident radiation or shading and orientation a building requires as a result more or less energy for heating, cooling and lighting.

In hot climates, the savings in cooling energy by optimising urban planning easy reach orders of magnitude, with which one can fully supply a building in Germany. The view on the micro-climatic situation therfore is worthwhile, not only in terms of comfort but also in terms of the energy demand and therefore cost of the building.

Services in urban design include the support in the early design stages, for example by shading diagrams and analysis and/or radiation analysis, the detailed analysis of the climate and weather of the specific site as well as strategic support formulating objectives in accordance with the client.

In further planning phases microclimate analysis for streets, squares or other smaller areas can be performed. In this case, an urban or open space planning design will be investigated according to climatic parameters such as air flow or temperature development at pedestrian level. We also develop comfort considerations. Such an analysis will be performed, if possible, parametrically to assess individual design measures according to their influence on the overall performance. The analysis will result in recommendations for adaptation of the urban design with the goal of high ambient comfort together with optimally aligned and thus energetically optimized buildings.

Simulation of larger urban areas will be carried out in co-operation with well-respected universities.

In addition to the above urban analysis BLAUSTUDIO supports individual criteria or full support according to DGNB certification for urban areas. For more information about certification, please see the menu item certification.