Solar rights in the design of urban spaces

Abstract

The consideration of solar rights in urban design is essential in order to allow passive heating of buildings in winter and to improve the comfort conditions of people in the street, sidewalks and open spaces. A design that doesn't consider the solar rights of buildings and open spaces may cause uncomfortable conditions inside the buildings and outdoors. This work presents a simple design tool for the consideration of solar rights in urban design that was developed by the use of the computer model SustArc. This tool allows the generation and evaluation of building configurations, ensuring solar rights of each neighbouring building, as well as the open spaces among them, by using the concept of solar envelopes, but without the need to use any specialized software. The goal of the present work is to provide the architect with simple and easy to use nomograms that can help him during the early design stages to determine the right proportions and geometry of open spaces and streets profile, based on the desired density level, project location and orientation. The nomograms are based on objective criteria for solar exposure of building facades for different zones of the city like the center, or the periphery. The paper presents the creation process of the nomograms, and demonstrates the application of these nomograms by two case studies.