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Modelling the effect of urban design on thermal comfort and air quality: The SMARTUrban Project

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  • Building Thermal, Lighting, and Acoustics Modeling
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Abstract

More than half of the world population lives nowadays in urban areas and that’s the reason why the quality of the urban environment has become a key issue for human health. In this context, it is important to estimate and document any action that contributes to improving thermal comfort and air quality. The aim of this paper is to present a system for the design of urban spaces developed in the framework of the SMARTUrban project. Such a system aims at giving a strategic tool to administrators and design professionals for sustainable management and urban planning. SMARTUrban is a prototype of an urban space design software that estimates the effect of design modification or of new design on thermal comfort, carbon sequestration and air pollutant removal.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by “SMARTUrban - Monitoring System and Territorial Urban Research” Project cofinanced by the Regional Government of Tuscany (POR CReO Bando Unico R&S 2012) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We acknowledge for their technical contribution in the development of the system Florinfo snc, Geosystems srl and Netsens srl.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biometeorology, National Research Council, Florence, Italy

    Luciano Massetti

  2. Centre of Bioclimatology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Martina Petralli, Giada Brandani, Marco Napoli, Francesco Ferrini, Alessio Fini & Simone Orlandini

  3. Department of Agrifood Production and Environmental Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Martina Petralli, Giada Brandani & Simone Orlandini

  4. Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences – Production, Landscape, Agroenergy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Alessio Fini

  5. Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba, Israel

    David Pearlmutter

  6. Studio Bellesi Giuntoli, Florence, Italy

    Alberto Giuntoli

Authors
  1. Luciano Massetti
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  2. Martina Petralli
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  3. Giada Brandani
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  4. Marco Napoli
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  5. Francesco Ferrini
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  6. Alessio Fini
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  7. David Pearlmutter
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  8. Simone Orlandini
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  9. Alberto Giuntoli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giada Brandani.

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Massetti, L., Petralli, M., Brandani, G. et al. Modelling the effect of urban design on thermal comfort and air quality: The SMARTUrban Project. Build. Simul. 12, 169–175 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-018-0490-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-018-0490-4

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