Search Results (2)

The quality of residential buildings in old urban areas of Beijing is known to be inconsistent, prompting numerous urban renewal projects in the city. This research investigates how building space impacts energy usage and daylighting in courtyard areas of old urban regions in northern China. It also proposes a quick evaluation method for building performance in courtyard spaces, utilizing multi-objective optimization and machine learning classification prediction as a theoretical framework. A study was conducted to gather and organize building space parameters and their corresponding performances using a genetic algorithm. The dataset was then pre-processed and trained using the LightGBM algorithm. The model validation results revealed a recall of 0.9 and an F1-score of 0.8. These scores indicate that the design scheme’s performance level can be accurately identified in practical use. The goal of this study is to propose a set of rapid assessment methods for building performance levels in courtyard spaces. These methods can significantly improve the feedback efficiency between design decision and performance assessment, reduce the time wasted in building performance simulation during the architectural design process, and avoid unreasonable renovation and addition in urban renewal. Furthermore, the research method has universality and can be applied to courtyard-shaped buildings in other regions. Full article

Heat stress brought on by the intensification of urban heat island (UHI) has caused many negative effects on human beings, which were found to be more severe in highly urbanized old towns. With the inconsistent findings on how urban spatial morphological characteristics influence land surface temperature (LST) and gaps between design practices being found, we chose Beijing Old Town (BOT) as the study area and took the basic planning implementation module “block” as a study to reveal the spatial heterogeneity of LST and its relationship to multiple urban morphological characteristics with higher spatial resolution calculated via WorldView3. Our results have shown that (1) UHI effect was significant and spatially heterogeneous in BOT, and significant hot areas with high LST value and small LST differences were found, as cold areas were the exact opposite. (2) The proportion of vegetated area, water, impervious surface, and urban spatial structure indicators i.e., building coverage ratio, mean height, highest building index, height fluctuation degree, space crowd degree and sky view factor were identified as significantly affecting the LST of blocks in BOT. (3) The effects of GBI components and configuration on LST varied within different block types; generally, blocks with GBI with larger patches that were more complex in shape, more aggregated, and less fragmented were associated with lower LST. Finally, in the context of integrating our study results with relevant planning and design guidelines, a strategy sample of adaptive GBI planning and vegetation design for blocks with different morphological features was provided for urban planners and managers to make a decision on UHI mitigation in the renewal process of BOT. Full article