Study on outdoor thermal comfort of the commercial pedestrian block in hot-summer and cold-winter region of southern China-a case study of The Taizhou Old Block

The pedestrian block, famous for its entertainment and commercial vitality, plays an important role in our daily life. The use of this space is determined by the outdoor thermal comfort which can directly affect human's thermal sensation and commercial value. A field questionnaire survey is carried out simultaneously with collecting the microclimatic data in this area. The thermal acceptability and the thermal comfort sensation votes are assessed based on the PET, in addition, a three-dimensional microclimatic modelling tool Envi-met 4.0 is used to evaluate the outdoor thermal comfort and validate the accuracy of the software through comparing the measured data with the simulated data. After putting forward some suggestion for redesigning this area, the result shows that there is as strong improvement in broadening the cooling time, early morning (8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.) and after 18:00 p.m. are the most comfortable time for visiting.