A Novel Quantitative Approach to the Spatial Configuration of Urban Streets Based on Local Wind Environment

Abstract

The urban street is an important part of the urban form and serves as the primary medium for public activities within cities. The morphological characteristics of urban street space not only influence people’s spatial experience but also have an impact on the quality of the physical environment, such as the wind environment. Numerous scholars have studied the wind environment of streets with different morphological characteristics using abstract and simplified street models, uncovering certain relationships between specific morphological features and airflow patterns. However, due to the significant disparity between simplified models and reality, researchers have attempted to develop models applicable to the complex characteristics of urban street space, with the aim of exploring the relationship between street spatial features and airflow characteristics. This study explores a method to quantify the complex spatial characteristics of urban streets, using a series of parameters to describe the streets, such as average width, proportion of secondary interfaces, and proportion of opening length. Streets with different spatial characteristics in the centre of Nanjing are selected and quantified. A comparison is conducted between the parameters representing street spatial morphology and the simulation results of the wind environment in the area, aiming to assess the effectiveness of these parameter values. The results demonstrate that complex urban spaces can still be effectively represented through parameterization and confirm the validity of our quantitative representation of complex street spatial characteristics. The results could serve as a reference for urban design and urban construction.