[Aricle]🌡️ How can microclimate modeling guide climate-responsive outdoor spaces inspired by Islamic courtyard design?

This article investigates the microclimatic role of vegetation around the 5 Azar Hospital in Gorgan, Iran. The site is located within a persistent urban heat island identified from MODIS land surface temperature observations. The study integrates satellite data, RayMan-based MRT estimation, field measurements, and ENVI met simulations to evaluate PMV-based outdoor comfort.

The ENVI met model was carefully calibrated with on-site air temperature and humidity measurements. This calibration was essential to capture wind flow, shading geometry, canopy density, and radiation exchanges with enough accuracy to inform design strategies. In hot climates, outdoor comfort depends on balancing solar protection with natural ventilation, avoiding stagnant warm pockets that develop when shading blocks wind paths.

Three vegetation scenarios were tested. Plane trees provided the most effective combination of shade, evapotranspiration, and airflow, lowering PMV by about 0.9 compared to current conditions and maintaining this benefit under future climate projections. These findings reflect long-standing principles of outdoor design in Islamic architecture, in which shaded courtyards, layered vegetation, porous canopies, and wind corridors oriented to prevailing winds create cooler microclimates for social and healing spaces.

This work builds on ten years of joint research with Dr. Gholamreza Roshan of Golestan University in a niche field that receives very limited funding yet remains essential for climate-responsive design in hot regions. His visit to ULiège, highlighted in my newsletter archive, reinforced our shared research on bioclimatic design and microclimate modeling in Iranian cities. https://www.shadyattia.org/guest-visit-reza-roshan-at-uliege/

📌 Read the article: https://doi.org/10.3390/f14101978

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