Heat Island Effect

We have been thinking about heat islands, and how to counteract their effects on the project area by our design.Here is a short description of the heat island effect:

Densely populated areas tend to be warmer than their rural surroundings, which is called the urban heat island effect. The mean temperature in a city of a million people or more can be up to 3 degrees warmer than its surroundings during a year. There are a few reasons for this phenomenon which in combination creates these huge temperature differences. The sun can heat dry, exposed surfaces to temperatures higher than the surrounding air, which occurs mainly on man-made materials such as brick, metals and asphalt, as opposed to grass fields. The lack of shading by trees and other organic components also emphasizes the heat island effect. In areas with tall buildings, the sunlight is reflected and absorbed by multiple surfaces, which means that the energy stays in the area for a longer time compared to flat ground surfaces that are in direct exposure to the atmosphere. Lack of vegetation (cooling of air by evapotranspiration) in urban areas also increase the effect and variations in heat conditions can vary between landcover types even within a city. 

(Baumann, P. (2009). Urban Heat Island Lesson. Geocarto International , 473-483.)

In the project we are trying to consider which materials to use, to expose the water of the canal to the city also in terms of irrigation of parks, agriculture and maybe even individual trees, shading of surfaces of different kinds and designed natural ventilation of houses. It is a working process, but these are some of the ideas we have had so far.