Bioclimatic Urbanism and Regional Design in Portugal： The Atlantic and the Mediterranean Contexts

The subject of the present work is the study of the relationship between the city shape and its geographical and climatic context. This is a very important feature of the Portuguese city. The Iberian Peninsula comprised by Spain and Portugal belongs to very different environments： the Atlantic and Mediterranean sea. This position is responsible for a series of highly contrasted regions. The external forces presented in each region, influence the shape, location and orientation, not only of individual buildings but of whole villages in such a way that we can identify pattems of construction in different natural regions. There is in fact, a remarkable correspondence between climate and urban type which is useful to identify for planning the different regions. The legacy of industrial city, as in other parts of the world, has changed this close connection between geography and architecture, with consequences not only in environment but especially for the identity of urban spaces. Bioclimatic urbanism is not just a question of sustainability or survival. It is also a question of local identity and variety. There is in fact a relationship between cultural process and environment responsive which we can learn from the structures of the past -- the pre-industrial city. We believe that the reinterpretation of the traditional city pattems forms a language which can be used as a design process for recovering urban landscape.

Urban natural gas demand and factors analysis in China:Perspectives of price and income elasticities

Urban natural gas is becoming the main sector driving China’s natural gas consumption growth in recent years.This study explores the impacts of urban natural gas price,wage,socioeconomic determinants,and meteorological conditions on urban natural gas demand in China over 2006-2017.Furthermore,this study also analyzes the potential regional heterogeneity and asymmetry in the impacts of gas price and income on China’s urban gas demand.Empirical results reveal that:(1)The increased gas price can significantly reduce the urban gas demand,and the average income level may effectively promote the gas demand,also,a strong switching effect exists between electricity and natural gas in urban China;(2)these impacts are heterogeneous in regions among China,urban natural gas demand is largely affected by the gas price in regions with high-gas-price and by income in regions with low-gas-price;and(3)the impact of gas price on urban gas consumption is consistent in regions with different urban natural gas consumption,while the impact of income is asymmetric.This study further provides several policy implications for improving the urban natural gas industry in China.

Survey of Shopping Streets as Basic Knowledge for Revitalizing the Old Town Centre of Parma

The revitalization of the historic fabric should not be considered only a matter of safeguarding the cultural heritage of collective memory; it will mainly be to recover and value an urban life, as in the urban context, the historic centre plays a function of social identification and recognition of the community, that commercial distribution helps to keep alive. It is widely spreading the concept of Old Town as Natural Shopping Centre： with this word, we define commercial complex and not homogenous places, developed over time without programming unit. designed as a unique space, which fall within a certain urban perimeter, work together as a business, financial administration, facilities and service all coordinated by a common policy development. In order to recover the vitality of the consolidated tissue of the city of Parma, the Town Council has started to study its historic centre as Natural Shopping Centre, relying on the potential inherent in the existing commercial streets.

Comprehensive Evaluation Method of Urban Remnant Natural Area: A Case study of Shanghai, China

Urban remnant natural area (URNA), located in the urban or suburb area, less disturbed by dwellers in the process of urbanization, is an important part of complex urban ecosystem and provides significant opportunity for urban sustainable development. Despite that there is a considerable amount of scientific researches on the urban nature in urban and suburb area, the comprehensive research of URNA is still rare. After analyzing the concept and value of URNA, this paper presented a methodology for comprehensive evaluation of URNA by adopting methods of document analysis, prior-selection process, analytic hierarchy process and vector resemblance-degree. As a result, the comprehensive evaluation index of URNA includes target level A, rule level B(ecological environment value, ecological recreation value, social culture value, scientific research value), index level C( diversity,singularity,nature,area,stability,recreation,landscape element,aesthetics,history,scientific), and index level D(20 items). Each index weight of comprehensive evaluation system of URNA of Shanghai was confirmed finally.

Mapping the urban natural ventilation potential by hydrological simulation

Urban wind environments are closely related to air pollution and outdoor human comfort.The urban natural ventilation potential(NVP)is an important factor in urban planning and design.However,for ventilation studies on urban scales,neither macroscale numerical simulations(i.e.,WRF,MM5,etc.)nor microscale computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulations can conduct efficient analyses.Based on the similarity between water flows and airflows,an efficient approach is proposed in this paper to map the urban NVP.Through integrating the urban terrain model,urban form model,and prevailing wind pressure model,an airflow digital elevation model(AF-DEM),which represents the resistance to airflow and can be used for a hydrological simulation,is generated and applied to evaluate the urban airflow patterns under different terrain,urban form and ambient wind conditions.The objective was to develop a simulation platform that can efficiently predict the distribution of natural ventilation corridor and NVP.The stream network calculated through the simulation is regarded as potential ventilation corridors within the city,and an index calculated from the coverage rate of wind corridors(CRW)is proposed for evaluating the relative NVP.Taking Nanjing as a case study,8 AF-DEMs based on different wind directions and wind speed conditions are generated,and their corresponding ventilation corridor maps are constructed.The results are in good agreement with the empirical evidence,indicating that the hydrological model,though a rudimentary approximation of the actual airflows,was effective in revealing the natural ventilation corridor and characterize the relative NVP.Moreover,the implementation of this novel method is simple and convenient,and it has great application potential and value in urban design and management.