I-COOL. Proposal for a complex evaluation model of the thermal comfort in urban open spaces.

Abstract

The awareness that reality is a complex phenomenon leads to reconsider the concept of quality defined by the reductionist model of modernism, that caused part of the complex picture of the problems that now characterizes our city.
Contemporary research, in order to solve these problems, replaced the purely quantitative and reductionist approach of modernism with a holistic and multidisciplinary approach, the only paradigm able to understand the reality , its components, and therefore the concept of quality .
This work fits within this general framework and limits its search to a specific issue: the urban overheating. Based on a highly multidisciplinary approach, the research proposes a model for qualitative evaluation of thermal comfort in urban open spaces . Although, in fact, different valuation models are available, there isn’t a synthetic instrument that represents a holistic view of the problem. The proposed valuation model , I- COOL , allows the integration of quantitative models, with the qualitative models proposed by research .
The proposed tool consists of a matrix that correlates : a complex picture of needs (which refers to multiple disciplines ); different technological systems related to the design of urban open spaces; the impact of these systems on the components of the thermal comfort . The instrument, calibrated through a field survey data , was finally applied to a specific case study, located in the urban context of Ferrara, in order to analyze the potential applications of the tool, its limitations, and the possible developments of the research.
Università degli Studi di Ferrara Dottorato di Ricerca in Tecnologia dell’Architettura. Ciclo XXVI