Desert New Urbanism: testing for comfort in downtown Tempe, Arizona

Abstract

Outdoor human comfort is determined for the remodelled downtown of Tempe, Arizona, USA, an acclaimed example of New Urbanist infill. The authors desired to know whether changes were accompanied by more comfortable conditions, especially in hot, dry summer months. The physiological equivalent temperature provided an assessment of year-round outdoor human comfort. Building compactness and tree shade that became part of the changes in the downtown provided more overall daytime human comfort than open nearby streets; however some downtown sites were less comfortable at night, but below 40°C, a threshold for human comfort in this desert environment.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank several people for fieldwork and making this paper possible; Barbara Trapido-Lurie and Barbara Krueger for graphics and cartography; Shai Kaplan, Ben-Gurion University, Be-er Sheva, Israel; Melissa Wagner, Martin Smith, Valeria Benson-Lira and Danielle Hoots ‒ all of whom are involved in an ongoing research effort in testing RayMan.