Thermal condition of the surface soil layer was neglected due to much concern of the urban heat island effect, which has an important impact on cities. In this study, on-site measurements of surface soil layer temperatures were conducted between two east-west oriented buildings in the winter, spring and summer. Building shade was shown to reduce average surface soil layer temperatures to 0.33, 0.33 and 0.37°C in three seasons, respectively. The horizontal heat flux between the building and the soil was calculated and showed different intensities at various monitoring sites. Additionally, the building shade could reduce and stabilize the surface soil layer temperature. According to the analytic hierarchy process, among six energy factors only horizontal heat flux between the building and the soil was correlated significantly ( p <0.05) to the different surface soil layer temperatures. This has a key or dominant role in affecting the difference in surface soil layer temperatures, which was influenced by the building shade. Moreover, the soil warming rate was reduced by the building shade (50% at most). The surface soil layer temperatures at various observation points were compared with the air temperature. The surface soil layer was found to have different roles between two sites in three seasons.
Three-dimensional urban morphology plays a role in adjusting the outdoor thermal environment while the effects of little variation in shape on outdoor thermal environment are still not evaluated. In addition, the renovation for senior people is getting more attention in China, which could be developed by installing elevators in old residential quarters. However, the evaluation of installing elevators in the perspective of outdoor thermal environment remains rare. Based on these two issues, 5 different parameters describing the three-dimensional urban morphology were chosen to simulate 4 scenarios and to analyze. Based on the results of one-way ANOVA and stepwise regression, installing elevator changed the three-dimensional shape of residential quarter, but the variation was less than 7%; temperature (T a ), mean radiation temperature (MRT), wind velocity (WV) and predictive mean vote (PMV) changed a little consequently, leading to very limited impacts on outdoor thermal qualities. The pattern of outdoor thermal environment slightly changed when installing elevators in the residential quarter, especially in the situation at night (no solar radiation). From the overall perspective of outdoor thermal environment evaluation, adding elevators in residential quarter has little effect on the threedimensional urban morphology and outdoor thermal environment.
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