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A Parametric Tool for Outdoor Shade Design: Harnessing Quantitative Indices and Visual Feedback for Effective and Efficient Climatic Design of Streets

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Computer-Aided Architectural Design. INTERCONNECTIONS: Co-computing Beyond Boundaries (CAAD Futures 2023)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1819))

Abstract

To date, there is a lack of orderly and data-based methods for quantifying, evaluating, and benchmarking street-level outdoor shade in streets and urban public spaces. The lack of such methods impedes the effective design of walkable and liveable outdoors in locations where shading is essential for significantly mitigating outdoor heat stress. To address this shortcoming, we have developed Kikayon, a relatively simple parametric tool that allows planners and designers to easily compare the effect of design alternatives on outdoor shade provision based on building geometry and tree canopy morphologies while taking into account the variance of exposure to solar radiation at different times. The tool calculates several shade and tree indices, some we have originally developed, for each street design, giving users quick and straightforward feedback and enabling them to quantitatively compare design alternatives. Our tool is implemented as a Grasshopper code that harnesses several components of the Ladybug Tools suite.

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Acknowledgement

The development of the tool was supported by the Israel.100 initiative. The authors would like to thank Arch. Shamay Assif for his ongoing support and Arch. Omri Ben-Chetrit for his valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BDAR Lab, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Or Aleksandrowicz & Ezra Ozery

Authors
  1. Or Aleksandrowicz
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  2. Ezra Ozery
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Correspondence to Or Aleksandrowicz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Michela Turrin

  2. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Charalampos Andriotis

  3. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Azarakhsh Rafiee

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Aleksandrowicz, O., Ozery, E. (2023). A Parametric Tool for Outdoor Shade Design: Harnessing Quantitative Indices and Visual Feedback for Effective and Efficient Climatic Design of Streets. In: Turrin, M., Andriotis, C., Rafiee, A. (eds) Computer-Aided Architectural Design. INTERCONNECTIONS: Co-computing Beyond Boundaries. CAAD Futures 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1819. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37189-9_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37189-9_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-37188-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-37189-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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