Response of Outdoor Thermal Environment to Small Changes in Three-Dimensional Urban Morphology - a Case Study of Adding Elevators to a Residential Quarter in Xuzhou City, China

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 three-dimensional urban morphology and outdoor thermal environment.