Climatic aspects in urban design - a case study

We present a case study of a design of a new business district in Tel Aviv city. In this work climatic aspects were taken into consideration in the very early design stages. For that purpose, two models SustArc (Proceedings of the ISES 1997 Solar World Congress, Taejon, Korea, 1997, p. 148) and FLUENT 5.0.2 (Fluent's User's Guide, Fluent Inc., NH, USA, 1999) were applied in order to achieve solar and wind rights. The new business district was designed as a high-density urban area and is located near an old low-rise residential quarter. SustArc was used as a design tool to create the solar envelope that shows the maximum available volume in which it is possible to build without violating the solar rights of existing residential neighborhood, the main avenues and the pedestrian sidewalks. FLUENT, on the other hand, was implemented as an evaluative tool, in a trial and error method, until a design solution could be achieved,. in which the wind rights of the residential neighborhood were preserved, while ensuring tolerable winds inside the business district. The paper presents the process of sun and wind controlled planning, as well as the recommendations. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.