Urban space and its profile: Design, plot and energy consumption
The urban skyline concept or ofurban space design in urban planning is becoming more and more known as new technologies are made available to researchers giving a new twist and meaning to urban space.
Theurban profile analysis is assuming substantial improvements incities that are becoming more and more populated and that they require; from new needs to "resizing" or changes in the initial urban structure and strategy with the intention to obtain a more sustainable configuration, characteristics and functionalities where energy consumption plays a fundamental role.
The urban profile determines the energy consumption of cities
Researchers have launched a new study calledUrban Skylines: Building Heights And Shapes As Measures Of City Size,that addresses the urban planning of cities and their development, of large cities, from the perspective of urban profiles and their morphology with the intention of finding answers and possible links between energy consumption and different profiles or urban spaces according to its infrastructure, population and typology.
From the report we can highlight two key points that clarify the urban fabric:
- I know shows that the average height of the building increases systematically and in a staggered way according to the urban scale of the city and the size of the population (See previous image, right part), regardless of the urban legislation that may be applied in each place, the size of the city, itsurban layout or the way of life in them.
- Urban land is more expensive in the center of cities or cities, it is an evidence, and that buildings should be taller, too. In theory, this trend should be good when it comes to energy efficiency. Taller buildings should look more like cubes and therefore have a lower surface / volume ratio, but to some extent. In cities like New York and Boston, this trend has led to the building much taller skyscrapers that are less energy efficient… . "The surface / volume ratio increases again in the core of the center of large cities, due to the proliferation of tall, needle-shaped buildings"
With this report you have analyzed about 4.8 million buildings in 12 cities in North America with variation in city sizes. It could answer questions like …How do the shapes of buildings vary from one city to another? How tall will buildings in a city be, according to growth, in the future? or how does energy consumption change as cities grow or shrink?
Example of urban fabric and its energy study
In New York City, for example, more than two-thirds of the energy is used in buildings or appliances, primarily for space cooling, heating, lighting, and electricity.
With these high rates of energy use, buildings are becoming a key point to understand and mitigate the negative consequences of energy use at urban fabric which is associated with polluting emissions and the greenhouse effect.
In this sense, the city of New York is beginning to understand its fabric and urban space in relation to energy consumption being able to ratify it with the following interactive map which is an average estimate of energy consumption, according to block, in relation to the square meter of land in location. (It can be consulted from HERE)
Ideal design of the urban space and its profile.
We have already clarified that buildings and therefore, the structure of the blocks are decisive in the energy consumption of a city. Now it's time to determine what the urban image or structure that best suits to reduce this energy expenditure. (Recommended to read urban landscapes and their growth from this same portal)
In search of the ideal city design, energetically speaking, there is a report that stands out above the others, CITIES AND ENERGY: Urban Morphology and Heat Energy Demand where the investigation of the urban morphology and its territory - excluding rural areas - has come to the comparison of different cities to highlight what the ideal urban nucleus should be like.
The case study represents the cities of London, Paris, Berlin and Istanbul. First you have to know the density, network and extension in relation to the population to understand what type of urban core we talked, and it is shown in the following images:
Example of real urban space and framework
In this section, the average demand for thermal energy per square meter of floor space on a selection of actual samples from a concrete urban area.
The results are shown through a heat-color map, so that the shape and thermal energy on demand can be represented.
Example of the ideal urban profile
The ideal, as a result in the reduction of energy consumption for the buildings and blocks that are previously exposed, it would be taking into account the present and new framework that cities should present:
To understand a little more, we recommend reading the article - ecological urban planning guide.
We recommend seeing two articles of interest that are free open source tools that can help us in our daily work: The application for urban road design and the two applications for urban maps with topography with OpenStreetMap and Osmbuildings.
These studies show that the urban space concept It is very broad and we still have to study and learn a lot from the development of cities if we want a more coherent and sustainable coexistence.
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