The Evaporative City Bioclimatic adaptation and regeneration using water

The global and local nature of climate change forces us to think on scales. On the macro scale of cities, several studies, and theories such as urban metabolism helps advance systemic notions such as sustainable cities and development. On the other extreme, in buildings design and performance, a lot of effort has been put to make buildings smarter, biophilic, and healthier. The scale in between, the neighborhood, remains a mostly unexplored topic. Nevertheless, it is fertile ground to test innovative solutions and synergies in a design-driven approach. It is small enough to investigate urban design solutions, envision hyphotheses, propose, test, and evaluate. It is also within the limit to perform not-so-complex environmental analysis and simulations using thermal and hydrodynamic software. Regarding stakeholder involvement, it has the potential to mobilize a local community in participatory dynamics. It is also easy to involve outsiders and specialists alike in issues they relate to. Given all these interesting aspects, the third part of the thesis “The Evaporative City: Bioclimatic Urban Regeneration Through Water” uses three neighborhoods located in different European climates and countries to test and re-test potentialities and synergies of water-cooling designs based on fountains, mists, and ponds. Evaluation is carried out with experts’ inputs and thermal simulation software (ENVI-met 5). The design and combination of these solutions are assessed with the goal to equip design professionals and related professions, in different European climate zones with guidelines on how and where to best place these solutions in public spaces, thus providing RECOMMENDATIONS to create positive design knowledge,1 and promote both climate adaptation and mitigation.