THERMAL COMFORT IN OUTDOOR SPACES. OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT FOR TO ADJUST THE RANGES OF COMFORT IN "OASIS CITIES"

M. ANGÉLICA RUIZ; ERICA CORREA; M. ALICIA CANTÓN

Cancún

Congreso; ISES Solar World Congress 2013; 2013

The degree of thermal comfort that people experiment in outdoor spaces is one of the determining factors for their use. This research aims to compare the degree of comfort in outdoor spaces measured and analyzed according to the thermal balances proposed by methods that take into account human physiology and heat transfer, with the feeling of comfort experienced by native individuals exposed to same microclimatic conditions. We used therefore two approaches: one objective and the other one subjective.For this reason were measured meteorological parameters in a pedestrian street of Mendoza's Metropolitan Area (MMA) in both winter and summer. From these data we calculated the comfort index called PMV. Then we compared these results, that take in consideration heat balances between individual-environment, -called objectives methods-; with the information that come from simultaneous surveys that reflect the subjective opinion of people on the site that was assessed.Initial results show that a purely physiological approach is inadequate to characterize the outdoors thermal comfort conditions, and that is crucial a best understanding of human behaviour parameter and the dynamics of the adaptation in the design of spaces for public use.Moreover, the studied city - Mendoza Metropolitan Area (AMM), Argentina -responds to the scheme of "oasis city ". Situated in a semi-arid region, this city is shaped by a complex combination of forest structures, urban fabric and the building arrangement. The final goal is to adjust the ranges of comfort provided by the physiological indexes traditionally used, to the real demand of individuals living in cities located in drylands, whose urban tissue present an intense urban forestation.