The impact of the building morphology on microclimate and thermal comfort-a case study in Beijing

Rapid urbanization leads to profound changes in land use patterns, which affects urban microclimate and thermal comfort at regional and local scales. Building is an important part of urban ecosystem and plays a significant role in urban microclimate regulation. In this study, 30 scenarios with different gradients of building spatial morphology were extracted from the typical plots of Beijing urban area, and six indicators were selected to represent the building spatial morphology: 3D shape index (3DSI), dimension of 3D fractal (3DF), shape coefficient (SC), weighted average height (WAH), building surface coverage ratio (BSCR), and sky view factor (SVF). Through the combination of field measurement and software simulation, this study comprehensively explored the interaction mechanism between building spatial morphology and urban microclimate/thermal comfort from multiple dimensions. The results show that: 1) compared with air temperature and relative humidity, wind condition is more affected by building spatial morphology; 2) among the 6 indicators, BSCR is more closely related to air temperature, relative humidity, MRT and PMV, while wind speed is mainly impacted by WAH; 3) there would be 15 units difference for MRT and 0.9 unit difference for PMV under different building morphology.