Landscape Architects

Urban green planning for cooler cities

Landscape design demands an in-depth understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature, in terms of designing the outdoor environment. Rising temperatures and increasing numbers of heavy rainfall and more frequent and intense droughts mean that landscape architects have a decisive role in the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Designing green infrastructure for and with the urban microclimate can create thermally comfortable urban climates despite increasing global warming. ENVI-met provides sophisticated analysis tools to simulate the interactions between plants’ physiological processes and the local microclimate. In addition, the impact on thermal comfort of water in various forms can be assessed to develop optimal design solutions.

Solar analysis

Shadow casting
Three-dimensional solar and shadow simulations

Reflection analysis
Complex calculation of multiple reflections in the model environment

High-resolution module
Dynamic boundary conditions for the analysis of building physics

Pollutant dispersion

Air pollutants
Analysis of dispersion, transformation and deposition in urban areas

Holistic microclimate simulation
Pollutant dispersion modelling for the assessment of reactive and non-reactive gases under consideration of the microclimate

User-defined traffic emission profiles
Pollutant analysis based on customizable vehicle fleet emission factors

Building physics

Façade temperatures
High-resolution simulation of façade and wall temperatures in direct interaction with the urban climate as well as estimation of building energy consumption

Exchange processes with green roofs and façades
High-resolution modeling of vegetated surfaces and their substrates, including heat and moisture transfer, as well as their interactions with the building

Green & Blue Technologies

Vegetation modeling
Simulation of evapotranspiration, CO₂ intake and leaf temperature based on photosynthetic rate

Green wall modeling
Calculation of the radiative transfer of the vegetation layer, considering substrate layers and wall structures

Water mist simulation
Simulation of the cooling effect of fine water spray on air temperature

Wind flow

Wind speed and patterns in complex environments
Simulation of three-dimensional wind and turbulence fields

Effects on the flow field
Estimation of wind conditions at each point in the model, considering vegetation, thermal conditions and local weather

Outdoor thermal comfort

Heat and energy flows
High resolution analysis of human thermal comfort within a modeled area

Diverse biometeorological and thermal comfort metrics
Direct calculation of metrics such as the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) or Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI)