SIGNIFICANCE OF MICROCLIMATIC STUDY IN URBAN CANYONS TOWARDS AMBIENT URBAN SPACE DESIGN

About 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, and the fraction is growing. Thus the study of the urban boundary layer and urban climate is of great importance.Since urban centres of the world have immense growth of population, their quality requires a very careful screening for sustainable future, growth and development. The quality of outdoor urban spaces is more significant in tropical countries like India, since the activities are shared between indoor and outdoor. There are clear links between the climate of a settlement and its potential sustainability. Its opportunities for gathering energy, its need for energy conservation and its ability to dispose of airborne wastes are largely controlled by the climate it experiences. moreover, urban design decisions will create microclimates that either accentuate or moderate the properties of the background climate. Thus, there is a clear role for an applied urban climatology in the planning of sustainable settlements. hence there is a compulsive need for providing ambient environmental conditions outdoors, specific to the pedestrian users. The uhI (urban heat Island) phenomenon though is influenced by many factors, the role of urban design and professionals like architects, urban designers and planners cannot be ignored. Often they are neglected when urban design principles get executed onsite. Therefore there is a need for understanding the urban microclimate interaction with the urban geometry elements for deriving design solutions and guidelines for the future. Though urban microclimate is also dependent on multiple factors this paper focuses on its relation with various urban geometry elements specific to the urban streets. The unit chosen for the study is ‘urban canyon’. To understand the microclimatic variation various profiles of urban canyons were selected. The urban microclimatic discomfort is given by the term “microclimatic Stress” and the thermal index used for the measurement is PeT (Physiological equivalent temperature) and rayman Pro is used for its calculation. The study of the canyons concluded with findings that proved significant impact of street geometry elements on the microclimatic stress of urban outdoors.