Outdoor thermal behavior and comfort of urban canyons inserted in different grids and geomorphologies of Mendoza

Abstract

The work is carried out in the Metropolitan Area of Mendoza (AMM), an arid climate city with two different geomorphological contexts. The objective seeks to study the relationship between the outdoor thermal behavior and comfort of urban canyons (UC) inserted into plain and hillside. To achieve this, six UC inserted in three urban grids (rational, organic and Cul-de-Sac) were selected and monitored. The results regarding the thermal behavior indicate that the rational UC is hotter in hillside than in plain; the Cul-de-Sac UC is hotter in plain than in hillside; and the organic UC has the highest maximum temperature but the coolest minimum temperature in plain. In terms of outdoor thermal comfort, the rational UC in the plain reaches 30%, and in the hillside it represents 20%; the organic UC in hillside reaches 30%, and in the plain it reaches 20%; being the best case the Cul-de-Sac UC in hillside (70%); while in plain it reaches only 20%. This shows that the outdoor thermal behavior and comfort of the UCs inserted in the same urban grid have different response according to the geomorphological site of implantation.