Bioclimate and city planning - open space planning

The planning and using of open spaces in urban areas very much depend on th e shading of the surrounding building structures. This article presents a m ethod for the investigation of the sunlight and the bioclimatic conditions in dependence on the surrounding buildings. It is illustrated for typical c ourtyards in Berlin, Germany, as one type of open spaces. The programme Hel ioDat determines the shading of any spot of an open space. It gives the pos sible duration of direct sunlight for the selected spot for each day of the year. The sunlight conditions in the courtyards differ from one another a lot in dependence on their size the tallness of the surrounding buildings. The calculation of the PMV on the basis of the results of the programme Hel ioDat determine the bioclimatic situation in the discussed courtyards. Alth ough the results of HelioDat are only one input among the weather condition s and the personal characteristics of the test-person, the bioclimatic cond itions correlate very much with the sunlight conditions. In a projected bui lding structure, the sunlight conditions vary a lot between the present sit uation and the two architectural alternatives. Since the bioclimatic situat ion is correlated to the sunlight conditions, this example demonstrates the importance for the investigation of the sunlight conditions and the biocli mate already during the planning process of buildings. (C) 1999 Elsevier Sc ience Ltd. All rights reserved.