Examining thermal comfort in open spaces in higher education settings in hot climate regions – Mosul as a case study

Outdoor spaces play a vital role in enriching students' academic experiences in higher education. While thermal comfort is key to their usability, research remains limited on university open spaces that consider the full academic year and the combined effects of shading and vegetation. This study addresses this gap in a hot-climate context, using Northern Technical University in Iraq as a case study. From October 2023 to May 2024, 874 thermal sensation votes and microclimatic data were gathered across five open spaces with differing vegetation and shading. Employing the adaptive thermal comfort approach, the study assessed users' thermal perceptions and microclimatic conditions. Results show that shading and vegetation significantly affect thermal comfort: in summer, globe temperatures in shaded, vegetated areas were up to 12.7 °C lower, while in winter, vegetated areas were up to 1.3 °C warmer. Thermal comfort thresholds ranged from 10.0–27.0 °C in winter to 25.0–41.0 °C in summer.