Thermal Comfort Improvement Strategies for Outdoor Spaces in Traditional Villages Based on ENVI-Met: Shimengao Village in Chizhou City

Abstract

The thermal comfort of outdoor spaces in traditional villages must be improved because high building density combined with complex and narrow spaces leads to a poor thermal environment. In traditional villages, outdoor spaces are the most frequently used places by local residents and tourists. In this study, the Shimengao Village in Tangxi Town, Chizhou City, a typical mountainous area in the southern Anhui Province, was selected as the research object, and Depthmap software was used to identify the most frequently used outdoor spaces. The spatial layout and three different outdoor spaces of the traditional village were measured and validated using ENVI-met software. In addition, the distribution of thermal comfort in the core area of the village and influencing factors were analyzed. Our results demonstrated that during summer, PET reached its highest value at 15:00, exhibiting a poor thermal environment in the core area of traditional village integration. From 15:00 to 21:00, PET values declined, resulting in improved thermal comfort levels. Open spaces had better thermal comfort ratings throughout the day. The thermal comfort distribution of three different types of outdoor space in traditional villages was also analyzed. The courtyard space had the worst thermal comfort, followed by the street space, whereas the square space had the best thermal comfort environment. This was correlated with the spatial layout of traditional villages, external facilities of buildings, microlandscapes (plants, water availability, etc.), and outdoor ground materials. Hence, we propose that optimizing the overall spatial layout of a traditional village, increasing the external facilities of buildings, creating “micro landscapes,” and optimizing the materials of outdoor spaces are important for improving the thermal comfort of the outdoor spaces of traditional villages.