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Aiming to improve thermal environment for outdoor public spaces, the author had been developing a unit‐type green parklet for parking lots that both introduce greenery into cities and produce walkable urban spaces. In this study, the author examined and created a full‐size unit‐type green parklet, installed it in a parking lot adjacent to sidewalk space next to a bus stop in the traditional urban area, Kyomachi district, of Kumamoto City, and investigated the improvement to summer thermal environment from a field measurement and its usage by people from user survey in summer (from August 30 to September 5, 2022). The results showed that although the parklet shaded with the parasol and greening units, air temperature dropped by only a maximum of 1°C in daytime. Given the characteristics of parking lot as a location, it was confirmed that not only the wind and airflow conditions was blocked and worsened, but reflected solar radiation from the surroundings and generated heat from parked cars degraded air temperature and MRT from the field measurement. Furthermore, it was confirmed to be ensured the visibility of the surroundings when sitting on the parklet bench for the users waiting for a bus from user survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, natural disasters have historically caused massive damage, and the importance of emergency temporary housing is increasing. In this paper, the summer thermal environment at the Shirahata temporary housing site in Kousa Town was assessed. The site was constructed following the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. The site was improved by applying a design methodology called "Kumamoto Type D," "D" stands for "Default & Design." Field measurements and computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the influence of the building arrangement on the outdoor thermal environment for the Kumamoto Type D layout. The results indicated that the impact of wind was reduced using this layout. However, when the surface temperature in the parking lot and other areas increased, hot air could be transmitted to the site, even under reduced wind conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, hot summer nights caused by urban heat island phenomena are affecting the health of the elderly population in many regional urban centers. Kumamoto city is one of the major regional urban centers in Japan, and urban heat island phenomena have serious implications especially in summer. Furumachi district is located in the center of Kumamoto city, and regarded as a historical district where many early modern houses have existed. The land allotment of city blocks in this district has not changed since the end of the early modern period in Japan (around 1868), and all new developments are performed as per this traditional land allotment. In the present study, for the effective utilization of the traditional land allotment in the historical district, summer thermal environment in Furumachi district has been analyzed and evaluated both from field measurements and numerical simulations. As a result, it has been demonstrated that the ground cover and spatial structure in and around vacant lands in the district, which have performed under the preserved traditional land allotment, have a significant influence on the sensible heat flux in building scale, and outdoor thermal comfort in living area scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]