To date, studies of outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) have focused primarily on physical factors, tending to overlook the relevance of individual adaptation to microclimate parameters through psychological and physiological behaviors. These adaptations can significantly affect the use of urban and outdoor spaces. The study presented here investigated these issues, with a view to aiding sustainable urban development. Measurements of OTC were taken at a university campus and in urban spaces. Simultaneously, a large-scale survey of thermal adaptability was conducted. Two groups were selected for investigation in a cold-winter-and-hot-summer (CWHS) region; respondents came from humid subtropical (Cfa) and hot desert (BWh) climates, according to the Köppen Climate Classification (KCC). Results showed that: (1) neutral physiological equivalent temperature (NPET) and preferred PET for people from the Cfa (PCfa) and BWh (PBWh) groups could be obtained with KCC; (2) PCfa adaptability behaviors were, subjectively, more adjustable than PBWh; (3) Clothing affected neutral temperature (NT), where NT reduced by approximately 0.5 °C when clothing insulation rose 0.1 Clo; and (4) Gender barely affected thermal acceptance vote (TAV) or thermal comfort vote (TCV) and there was a substantial relationship between thermal sensation, NT, and PET. These findings suggest ‘feels like’ temperature and comfort may be adjusted via relationships between microclimate parameters.

Quantifying the energy consumption of buildings is a complex and multi-scale task, with the entire process dependent on input data and urban surroundings. However, most urban energy models do not account for the urban environment. This paper employs a physical-based, bottom-up method to predict urban building operating energy consumption, using imported topography to consider shading effects on buildings. This method has proven to be feasible and aligned well with the benchmark. Research also suggests that commercial and transport buildings have the highest energy use intensity, significantly more than residential and office buildings. Specifically, cooling demands far outweigh heating demands for these building types. Therefore, buildings in the commercial and transportation sectors would receive greater consideration for energy efficiency and improvements to the cooling system would be a priority. Additionally, the method developed for predicting building energy demand at an urban scale can also be replicated in practice.

In China, little research on outdoor thermal comfort has been conducted in the hot-summer and cold-winter zone where occupants are in the state of thermal discomfort for most time of the year. This paper presents results from both field measurement and questionnaire survey in the city of Wuhan in both summer and winter seasons about seasonal adaptation effect on outdoor thermal comfort. A total of 417 samples were collected in summer and 426 samples were collected in winter. The neutral standard effective temperature (SET*) in winter and summer was found to be 24.7°C and 25.6°C, respectively. Occupants achieved thermal comfort when their thermal sensation was slightly cool in summer and slightly warm in winter. The SET* with 100% thermal acceptance rate in summer and winter was found to be 27.9°C, 23.4°C, respectively. The results reveal large seasonal differences in achieving outdoor thermal comfort for people in hot-summer and cold-winter climate zone. This research can add more database to outdoor thermal comfort research in China and provide more insights into the thermal adaptation of seasonal effect on outdoor thermal comfort. Its findings can also assist urban designers to create thermally comfortable urban spaces in different seasons.

Currently, people in crowded indoor spaces are required to wear a variety of personal protective equipment to curb the spread of COVID-19. This study aimed to investigate the effects of wearing four types of personal protective equipment (unprotected, wearing masks, wearing face shield and wearing medical protective clothing) on human thermal perception and physiological responses in indoor crowded spaces in summer. The experiment was conducted in a climate chamber designed to simulate the indoor crowded spaces. Environmental parameters of climate chamber (air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed), physiological parameters of subjects (wrist skin temperature and pulse rate), and subjective perceptions (thermal sensation and thermal comfort) were collected during the experiment. The experimental results showed that medical protective clothing has the most obvious blocking effect on heat exchange between human and environment. Thermal sensation in state 4 (wearing medical protective clothing) was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that in other states. The study of physiological parameters showed that the wrist skin temperature and pulse rate under different protection states increased with the increase of room temperature. Through regression analysis, the thermal sensation estimation model of protective personnel in indoor crowded spaces based on wrist skin temperature and pulse rate was established. The adjusted R² and RMSE of all models were above 82% and less than 1, indicating that the established thermal sensation model had a good prediction effect.