Quantifying the impact of buildings on land surface temperature: Intrinsic structure and extrinsic morphology

Rapid changes in urban buildings have profoundly impacted on the thermal environment. However, there is a limited understanding of the influences of different building structures on land surface temperature (LST). Simultaneously, uncertainties persist regarding the potential thermal environmental effects of building structures and morphology. To address these issues, this study was focused on both the intrinsic structure and the external morphology, to comprehensively explore thermal environmental characteristics and investigate into the complex latent relationships between the thermal environment and building structure and morphology. This study revealed the following: (1) The effects of the different structural buildings on the enhancement of the LST in Futian District, Shenzhen city, in the following descending order: barrel structure, masonry structure, steel structure, frame structure, mixed structure, and shear wall structure. (2) Different morphological indicators have different effects on clusters with different building structure compositions. In the single-building structure clusters, the three average indicator importance intensities are the perimeter-area ratio average (PARA) (0.2), building area (Area) (0.15), and building height (Height) (0.13); in the non-single-building structure cluster, they are Height (0.4), PARA (0.13), and Area (0.1), respectively. These findings highlight that in addition to prioritizing Area, PARA, and Height in building design, more shear wall structural buildings are recommended for urban planning. •Dual perspective study on intrinsic structure and external morphology.•Different building structures' impact on LST ranked: barrel, masonry, steel, frame, mixed, shear wall.•Morphological indicators' effects vary in different structure clusters; prioritizing Area, PARA, and Height in design.•Shear wall structural buildings recommended for urban planning.