Assessing Urban Microclimate Using Multi-agent Simulations: a New Approach to Answer an Old Problem?

The re-discovery of the urban environment as an important component of daily life induced an increased interest in methods for assessing the quality of open spaces with respect to their contribution to the quality of urban life. A wide range of studies ranging from field experiments up to the application of numerical models have been conducted in order to understand and predict the interactions between the urban design, local microclimate and human comfort. Unfortunately, like in most other cases in which individual human decisions are involved, the relationship between the stimulating factors and the observed behaviour patterns are far from being trivial. Using the technique of Multi-Agent simulation, new insights into the complex interactions between microclimate, the thermal comfort of an individual pedestrian and the emergent pedestrian behaviour patterns can be obtained. In this paper the outline of the climBOT model system and its possible application to assess urban microclimate is presented.