Beyond Thermal Comfort: A Systems Approach to Urban Comfort - Key Takeaways from Urban Transition 2024

Last week at the 爱思唯尔 #Urban #Transitions #2024 Conference, I attended several compelling presentations that significantly enriched my PhD research on developing a Decision Support System (DSS) for urban environmental comfort. Each presentation offered unique insights into different aspects of my research framework.

Dr. Belen Zapata Diomedi's presentation on agent-based modeling demonstrated how to integrate multiple urban factors into a comprehensive framework effectively. Their JIBE project, examining the relationships between built environment, transport behavior, and health outcomes, provided valuable methodological insights for my research, particularly in considering how spatial configurations influence environmental exposures.

Dr. Tamara Iungman's research on urban configuration types and their impact on environmental factors perfectly aligned with my spatial analysis component. Her findings on how different urban patterns affect heat islands, air pollution, and CO2 emissions reinforced my approach to considering multiple environmental factors beyond thermal comfort. The identification of four distinct urban configuration types (Compact-High Density to Green-Low Density) offers a valuable framework for analyzing the relationship between spatial patterns and environmental comfort in my DSS.

Dr. Alberto Castro's work on the BEST-COST R package highlighted the importance of integrating various data formats and considering social inequities in environmental assessment. This approach resonates with my goal to incorporate social perception into environmental comfort analysis, suggesting methods to quantify and analyze diverse data types within my system dynamics framework.

Dr. Anna Le Gouais's presentation on the HAUS model demonstrated how to synthesize complex environmental-health relationships into practical decision-making tools. Her approach to incorporating over 200 environment-health impact pathways inspires developing my DSS to handle multiple comfort-related variables and their interconnections.

The research presented by Dr. Ruben Vrijhoef on urban modeling for construction logistics offered valuable insights into how spatial configurations and transport patterns influence urban environmental quality. This perspective helps me better understand my framework's relationship between urban activity patterns and environmental comfort.

Dr. Raphael Hoerler's work with virtual reality tools for urban planning participation was particularly relevant to my research's social perception component. His innovative approach to using VR for public engagement suggests new methods for gathering and analyzing citizens' comfort perceptions in outdoor urban spaces.

Finally, Dr. Pauline van den Berg's research on public space attributes and emotional responses provided crucial insights into how environmental features influence social well-being. Her findings on the relationship between green elements, public space attributes, and emotional responses will be invaluable in developing the social perception component of my DSS framework.

These presentations collectively reinforced my integrated approach to urban environmental comfort, demonstrating the importance of considering multiple environmental factors (thermal, air quality, soundscape), spatial configurations, and social perceptions. They've provided methodological insights for developing my system dynamics-based DSS and highlighted the significance of incorporating diverse data types and analysis methods.

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#UrbanPlanning #PhD #Research #EnvironmentalComfort #SystemDynamics #UrbanTransition2024 #SustainableUrbanDevelopment