I-COOL. Proposal for an evaluation model of the thermal comfort in urban open spaces.

The paper presents a new tool for the thermal comfort evaluation in outdoor public spaces. The model (I-COOL), that is part of a larger doctoral research, defines a new index (VTC) for the evaluation of several components affecting the thermal comfort sensation. The VTC index is a synthesis of the two approaches described in literature (physiological ad adaptive approaches). In particular, the model allows to consider how urban morphology (as sky view factor) and technological devices (as green surface) influence the thermal comfort sensation. The proposed tool has been verified through an experimental campaign of collecting data, carried out in the city of Ferrara during the summer of 2013, to calibrate the model. The model has been applied to a case study, Cortevecchia Square. The application has highlighted its strengths and its limits. The paper will present the model, describing the new proposed indices, the structure of the computational model, the validation activities and discusses the results of the application to the case study.