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University campuses feature spatially diverse environments where thermal performance varies seasonally and spatially. In this study, we integrate field measurements with ENVI-met simulations to evaluate how sky view factor (SVF) influences microclimate and outdoor thermal comfort-quantified via air temperature (Ta), mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), wind speed (WS), relative humidity (RH), physiologically equivalent temperature (PET), and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI)-within urban street and urban building spaces on a temperate Chinese campus. The results reveal contrasting thermal responses: in summer, low-SVF urban street spaces (SVF_avg 0.075) exhibit moderate heat stress (PET_avg 34.5–39.5 °C) due to radiative trapping and limited ventilation, whereas high-SVF urban building spaces (SVF_avg 0.159) face greater heat load and stronger thermal stress, with peak PET exceeding 49.9 °C. In winter, high-SVF urban building spaces benefit from solar gain, improving thermal comfort. Statistical analyses indicate non-linear threshold effects of SVF on comfort indices, with summer comfort positively correlated at SVF > 0.2, and winter comfort negatively associated at SVF ≤ 0.4. These findings identify SVF as a key geometric predictor of seasonal thermal comfort in distinct campus spatial types, provide quantitative thresholds to guide climate-resilient campus planning in warm temperate zone.

يتناول البحث دراسة مورفولوجية التركيب العمراني بمدينتي القنطرة، دراسة ميدانية من خلال دراسة حالات المباني من حيث المباني الجيدة والمباني المتوسطة والمباني الرديئة، ودراسة أعمار المباني من فترة أكثر من ٧٥ عام إلى أقل من 15 عام، بالإضافة إلى ارتفاعات المباني التي تكونت من طابقين إلى خمسة طوابق فأكثر بالمدينتين، ومادة البناء سواء كانت هيكلي أو حوائط حاملة أو معدني أو طوب لبن وخشبي، إلى جانب أنماط المباني والتي تنوعت بين عمارة وفيلا وشاليه وبيت ريفي ومباني للعمل أو مباني جوازيه وتوزيع المباني طبقا لاتصالها بالمرافق العامة سواء كانت كهرباء أو مياه شرب أو صرف صحي، بجانب خصائص شبكة الشوارع من شوارع رئيسية وثانوية وفرعية بالمدينتين.

The relationship between urban morphology and urban design or planning practice is inherently complex and multifaceted. A key challenge stems from the limited relevance and applicability of morphological tools to the practical issues encountered in professional planning contexts. This study seeks to address this gap by investigating how morphological analysis can inform the development of future urban plans and projects, particularly in areas where a strong historical fabric is integrated with contemporary urban structures. The research applies the Morpho method to historical urban environments, examining multiple morphological parameters, including street typology, block dimensions, plot density, the ratio of building height to street width, building alignment, and land-use distribution. Furthermore, the study introduces a new analytical criterion, the density of historical buildings within each street block, to enhance the methodological comprehensiveness of the analysis. The study also integrates the physical analysis of urban form with socio-economic dimensions by incorporating ownership status and population density data, thereby extending the framework and generating significant insights. Four neighborhoods in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, were selected as case studies to illustrate the application of this method. The results demonstrate that the Morpho analysis can serve as a robust foundation for developing planning and design codes, facilitating the harmonious integration of historical urban areas with modern urban fabrics. The study concludes by suggesting how morphological knowledge can be translated into planning action by proposing planning strategies, emphasizing their potential role in guiding sustainable urban development. Ultimately, this study has important outcomes for sustainable urban development by addressing the integration between historical and modern patterns within ongoing urban alterations, the sustainability of historical patterns, and their integration with modern fabric. These outcomes can be used in urban policies for sustainable urban development in historical areas.

Climate adaptation, mitigation, and protecting strategies are becoming even more important as climate change is intensifying. The impacts of climate change are especially tangible in dense urban areas due to the inherent characteristics of urban structure and materiality. To assess impacts of densification on urban climate and potential adaptation strategies a densely populated Viennese district was modeled as a typical sample area for the city of Vienna. The case study analyzed the large-scale densification potential and its potential effects on microclimate, air flow, comfort, and energy demand by developing 3D models of the area showing the base case and densification scenarios. Three methods were deployed to assess the impact of urban densification: Micro-climate analysis (1) explored urban heat island phenomena, wind pattern analysis (2) investigated ventilation and wind comfort at street level, and energy and indoor climate comfort analysis (3) compared construction types and greening scenarios and analyzed their impact on the energy demand and indoor temperatures. Densification has negative impacts on urban microclimates because of reducing wind speeds and thus weakening ventilation of street canyons, as well as accelerating heat island effects and associated impact on the buildings. However, densification also has daytime cooling effects because of larger shaded areas. On buildings, densification may have negative effects especially in the new upper, sun-exposed floors. Construction material has less impact than glazing area and rooftop greening. Regarding adaptation to climate change, the impacts of street greening, green facades, and green roofs were simulated: The 24-h average mean radiant temperature (MRT) at street level can be reduced by up to 15 K during daytime. At night there is only a slight reduction by a few tenths of 1 K MRT. Green facades have a similar effect on MRT reduction, while green roofs show only a slight reduction by a few tenths of 1 K MRT on street level. The results show that if appropriate measures were applied, negative effects of densification could be reduced, and positive effects could be achieved.

This study investigates the innovative use of street puppet theatre performances on the façades of commercial buildings to stimulate social gatherings in smart cities. This research investigates the impact of a unique musical puppet show held throughout the 2024 holiday season in the well-known shopping mall El Corte Inglés in Madrid, Spain. This study utilises both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, such as space syntax analysis and empirical observations. It uses the UCL Depthmap 10 software program to assess urban morphology and identify integrated and segregated areas. Observations and video recordings were conducted to analyse social gatherings and behaviours during the performances. The findings reveal that these performances attract diverse audiences and foster social engagement, transforming commercial façades into vibrant public spaces. The study concludes that such innovative uses of urban architecture can significantly enhance the sociability of detached and segregated urban spaces. The research demonstrates that this particular dynamic façade not only fosters social sustainability by creating lively urban spaces but also contributes to economic sustainability by attracting potential customers to commercial centres. This research advances the discourse on smart city development and public space utilisation, offering valuable insights for urban planners and policymakers on leveraging interactive urban façades to enhance public engagement and revitalise underutilised spaces.

This article uses big data from images captured by Google Street View (GSV) to analyse the extent to which the built environment impacts the survival rate of neighbourhood-based social organisations in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. These organisations are important building blocks for social life in urban neighbourhoods. Examining these organisations’ relationships with their environment has been a useful way to study their vitality. To extract data on built environment features from GSV images, we applied a deep learning model, DeepLabv3+. We then used elastic net regression to test the relationship between the built environment empirically – distinguishing between car-related, walking-related and mixed-use land infrastructure – and the survival of neighbourhood organisations. This testing approach is novel, to our knowledge not yet having been applied in Urban Studies. Besides revealing the effects of built environment features on the social life between buildings, our study points to the value of easily applicable observational big data. Data captured by GSV and other recently developed methods offer researchers the opportunity to conduct detailed yet relatively swift and inexpensive studies without resorting to overly coarse or common subjective measurements. 本文使用谷歌街景 (GSV) 拍摄的图片中的大数据来分析建筑环境对荷兰阿姆斯特丹街区社会组织存活率的影响程度。这些组织是城市街区社会生活的重要组成部分。研究这些组织与其环境的关系是研究其生命力的一个有用的方法。为了从 GSV 图像中提取建筑环境特征的数据，我们应用了深度学习模型 DeepLabv3+。然后，我们使用弹性网络回归来实证检验建筑环境（区分汽车相关、步行相关和混合使用的土地基础设施）和街区组织存活之间的关系。据我们所知，这种测试方法是新颖的，此前从未在城市研究中被应用过。除了揭示建筑环境特征对建筑间社会生活的影响，我们的研究还指出了易于应用的观测大数据的价值。GSV 和其他最近开发的方法获得的数据使研究人员能开展详细而又相对迅速且廉价的研究，同时无需诉诸过于粗糙或普通的主观测量。

More than one billion people live in informal settlements under precarious conditions. Urban planning is considered an important instrument to mitigate compromised living conditions in informal settlements. However, limited studies have investigated the long-term impact of urban planning in contexts with limited capacity to enforce building and planning regulations. The purpose of this study is to assess the long-term impact of urban planning on the development of sustainable urban form in contexts characterized by unregulated urban development. The study conducted geospatial surveys of three urban areas in Maputo, Mozambique covering adjacent planned and unplanned settlements that were established more than 40 years ago and subsequently developed with limited enforcement of building and planning regulations. High-resolution maps were produced and six urban form metrics were computed for the planned and unplanned areas respectively, providing the basis for quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Although the study found signs of street encroachment and appropriation of the public space in the planned areas, the study found higher levels of built densities, higher proportions of public space, and higher average street widths in all planned areas compared to the respective neighboring unplanned areas. Furthermore, the statistical analysis consistently showed large effect sizes (Cohen's d > 0.8) of urban planning on indicators of compact city development and access conditions. The results underscore that planning of street fabrics and plot layouts can enhance compact city development, improve transportation conditions, and increase the feasibility of investments in infrastructure in contexts with limited capacity to administer the urban growth.

This contribution demonstrates how space syntax methods on various scale levels can be used to identify and describe the spatial features of a compact city. Firstly, the term urban compactness is discussed. A short discussion of some writings on the compact city are elaborated. As it transpired, urban compactness can best be approached from a spatial topological point of view, since compactness is a topological property. Secondly, urban compactness will be reconsidered in spatial configurative terms through the use of space syntax and urban micro scale tools. Examples from car-, pedestrian-, and public transport-based centres in Oslo and Bergen will be used throughout this contribution. Discussions of the examples in this contribution are discussed with references to other space syntax research results. As the case studies show, enhancing compact neighbourhoods with good walkability potential from a spatial perspective relies on spatial interaccessibility on all scale levels. Accessibility depends on spatial configurative compactness. Seemingly, it depends on the following complex set of sufficient conditions: a spatially integrated street network on all scale levels, short urban blocks and streets with building entrances with windows and doors on the ground floor level.

As cities and their population are subjected to climate change and urban heat islands, it is paramount to have the means to understand the local urban climate and propose mitigation measures, especially at neighbourhood, local and building scales. A framework is presented, where the urban climate is studied by coupling a meteorological model to a building-resolved local urban climate model, and where an urban climate model is coupled to a building energy simulation model. The urban climate model allows for studies at local scale, combining modelling of wind and buoyancy with computational fluid dynamics, radiative exchange and heat and mass transport in porous materials including evaporative cooling at street canyon and neighbourhood scale. This coupled model takes into account the hygrothermal behaviour of porous materials and vegetation subjected to variations of wetting, sun, wind, humidity and temperature. The model is driven by climate predictions from a mesoscale meteorological model including urban parametrisation. Building energy demand, such as cooling demand during heat waves, can be evaluated. This integrated approach not only allows for the design of adapted buildings, but also urban environments that can mitigate the negative effects of future climate change and increased urban heat islands. Mitigation solutions for urban heat island effect and heat waves, including vegetation, evaporative cooling pavements and neighbourhood morphology, are assessed in terms of pedestrian comfort and building (cooling) energy consumption.

Urban heat island (UHI) effects can strengthen heat waves and air pollution episodes. In this study, the dampening impact of urban trees on the UHI during an extreme heat wave in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, metropolitan area is examined by incorporating trees, soil, and grass into the coupled Weather Research and Forecasting model and an urban canopy model (WRF-UCM). By parameterizing the effects of these natural surfaces alongside roadways and buildings, the modified WRF-UCM is used to investigate how urban trees, soil, and grass dampen the UHI. The modified model was run with 50% tree cover over urban roads and a 10% decrease in the width of urban streets to make space for soil and grass alongside the roads and buildings. Results show that, averaged over all urban areas, the added vegetation decreases surface air temperature in urban street canyons by 4.1 K and road-surface and building-wall temperatures by 15.4 and 8.9 K, respectively, as a result of tree shading and evapotranspiration. These temperature changes propagate downwind and alter the temperature gradient associated with the Chesapeake Bay breeze and, therefore, alter the strength of the bay breeze. The impact of building height on the UHI shows that decreasing commercial building heights by 8 m and residential building heights by 2.5 m results in up to 0.4-K higher daytime surface and near-surface air temperatures because of less building shading and up to 1.2-K lower nighttime temperatures because of less longwave radiative trapping in urban street canyons.