Investigating the impact of tall building configurations on the resilience of urban open spaces against heat islands (Case Study: Subtropical climate, Iran, Tehran)

This study aims to indicate which patterns of configuration and orientation typologies, such as linear and a single block, decrease the number of heat islands and provide thermal comfort. In subtropical climate zones, the influence of high-rise buildings on heat islands is more pronounced. The basic models were selected based on common worldwide urban forms. Indicators of linear and single block forms, orientations, distances among blocks, and heights of blocks were modeled in Envi-met software and evaluated using the thermal comfort index Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and temperature to find the best conditions. The primary grid for building configurations was 10*10*10 m 3 . Multiple scenarios and conditions confirmed the significant association of the thermal islands’ intensity and the form of tall buildings, their orientations, and the distances between the buildings' rows. As shown by the research results, the best way to arrange the buildings in the hot and dry zones to reduce the heat islands is single blocks, with the north-south orientation as the optimum choice. The best ratio between block heights and distances of block rows is 7.2.