The Impact of the Pattern of Urban Architecture on Microclimate
GAO Jianfeng, ZHUANG Dafang, HE Yuqin et al.

 南京农业大学资源与环境学院，南京 210095;  2 中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所，北京 100101

Abstract

This paper regards the unique building pattern of experiment building in Nanjing Agricultural University as an observation spot; meanwhile the daily maximum temperature, minimum temperature and mean temperature of the lawn inside and outside of the experiment building were measured respectively. The results indicate that because of the special building pattern, the difference in minimum temperature on sunny days is more than 4 ℃ between the building and the open space. However the difference in temperature during the cloudy and rainy days is minor, being generally less than 2 ℃. When the cold air comes in from the North, the difference in temperature often rises rapidly, this makes the daytime minimum temperature of the lawn inside the experiment building 4℃ higher than that of the open space. As the minimum temperature of the lawn outside of the experiment building reaches the critical low temperature of the orange tree at -4 ℃, the temperature of the lawn intra building still keeps at about 0℃. Just because of this reason, if we are to grow oranges under the same condition as outside of the experiment building, the oranges will not grow well; however, orange can grow very well under the same climate condition as that of the lawn inside of the experiment building. In other words, the microclimate has even caused the transformation of the distribution of the plant species. The mean differences in temperature are different at different time intervals of a day, the difference in mean temperature is the highest at 14:00h at noon, being 1.7℃; the next is at 08:00h in the morning and at 02:00h at night, being 1.3 ℃; and the lowest is at 20:00h, being 0.9 ℃. The pattern of urban architecture exerts a greatest influence on the minimum temperature in a day. The object of this paper is to emphasize the impact of the pattern of urban architecture on microclimate and to arouse public attention. Finally suggestion is given on how to rationally utilize urban buildings.
Keywords: urban architecture; microclimate; temperature