In areas with a dry and hot climate, factors such as strong solar radiation, high temperature, low humidity, dazzling light, and dust storms can tremendously reduce people’s thermal comfort. Therefore, researchers are paying more attention to outdoor thermal comfort in urban environments as part of urban design. This study proposed an automatic workflow to optimize urban spatial forms with the aim of improvement of outdoor thermal comfort conditions, characterized by the universal thermal climate index (UTCI). A city with a dry and hot climate—Kashgar, China—is further selected as an actual case study of an urban block and Rhino & Grasshopper is the platform used to conduct simulation and optimization process with the genetic algorithm. Results showed that in summer, the proposed method can reduce the averaged UTCI from 31.17 to 27.43 °C, a decrease of about 3.74 °C, and reduce mean radiation temperature (MRT) from 43.94 to 41.29 °C, a decrease of about 2.65 °C.

A courtyard is a traditional and popular construction feature found in China’s urban buildings. This case study evaluates the performance of the traditional courtyard design of the Jiangnan Museum, located in Jiangsu Province. In the evaluation, the spatial layout of courtyards is adjusted, the aspect ratio is changed, and an ecological buffer space is created. To model and evaluate the performance of the courtyard design, this study applied the Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, Parabolic Hyperbolic Or Elliptic Numerical Integration Code Series (PHOENICS), for wind environment simulation, and the EnergyPlus-based software, DesignBuilder, for energy simulation. Results show that a good combination of courtyard layout and aspect ratio can improve the use of natural ventilation by increasing free cooling during hot summers and reducing cold wind in winters. The results also show that ecological buffer areas of a courtyard can reduce cooling loads in summer by approximately 19.6% and heating loads in winter by approximately 22.3%. The study provides insights into the optimal design of a courtyard to maximize its benefit in regulating the microclimate during both winter and summer.

Aiming at the current isolated, static protection method of traditional villages, a comprehensive evaluation system for the living protection of traditional villages has been constructed based on the land use function integration concept in “Production–Living–Ecology” (PLE). By combining the “horizontal” PLE coupling coordination analysis with the “vertical” correlation analysis of the elements at each layer, the comprehensive evaluation and quantitative analysis of six traditional villages of different types and grades in the Taihu Lake area are carried out to quantitatively reflect the interactive relationship and integration mechanism of PLE in traditional villages. The results show that: (1) The PLE development of traditional villages is a dynamic process. Even if the villages are close in the PLE score, they may be in different stages of PLE development and coupling coordination type. (2) The “living” function has the highest correlation with the coupling coordination degree of PLE, and it acts as the engine and bridge of benign interaction between the PLE. (3) Even if the national traditional villages have a favorable ecology background, they may not get high scores, or even fail in the PLE score. (4) Among the sub-indicators, the natural environmental characteristics, the ecological vitality of political organizations, and the level of human settlement facilities show a significant linear correlation with the PLE score. Additionally, the ecological vitality of political organizations is the strongest. It can be therefore concluded that a positive policy organization is an important guarantee for realizing the PLE integration of traditional villages.

Street vitality is associated with a comfortable human-based public environment and urban sustainability. In most current studies, street vitality is assessed considering single or multi factors; however, the impact of time dimension is ignored. This study selects nine different year-built streets in old, main, and new urban areas, in Nanjing, China, proposes a framework to assess street vitality considering the different time dimensions and selects the following factors: street form, including building density, continuity, and height-width; street business type, including store density, function density, and permeation rate; and street accessibility, including location, the number of entrances/exits, transportation, and walkability. After calculating the values of the subfactors, a ranking method was applied to assign the ranking of impact of all factors for a comprehensive analysis. The results showed that Pipa Street, Wufu Street in a main urban area, and Hongmiao Street had the highest street vitality and the highest rankings of almost all the factors. Street vitality in different periods demonstrated that street vitality in new urban areas is lower compared with old and main urban areas.