Urban squares are an important part of a city’s overall spatial environment. However, many urban squares lack rational designs, causing the thermal environment to deteriorate. To ensure sustainable urban development, urban square microclimates should be improved. Given that, this study investigates the effects of three coverages of three landscape elements of urban squares through modeling and simulation using the ENVI-met model validated by field measurements. The correlation between physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and different amounts of landscape elements is investigated using Spearman analysis. This study presents a case study of a typical urban square in a cold climate area. Design strategies in the area are proposed. The results show that the microclimate and thermal comfort of the urban square can be improved by expanding water bodies, modest increasing buildings and optimizing vegetation. Vegetation is the most important landscape element affecting thermal comfort in the urban square. The PET can be reduced by about 1.5 °C by increasing the vegetation cover from 40% to 70%. However, the degree of microclimate regulation by vegetation is disturbed by water bodies and buildings (|ρ| ≥ 0.5). Therefore, to achieve a more comfortable thermal environment, a combination of landscape elements should be considered.

Microclimate is a reflection of the climatic conditions within the scope of human daily activities, so it is closely related to human activities. This paper uses Qingshui Village in Hancheng as the research object and the purpose of this paper was to study the influence mechanism of the traditional street spatial form on microclimate and thermal comfort, emphasizing the use of parameterized design platforms in technical methods to construct performance simulations and obtain relatively optimal solutions that are suitable for the spatial form of rural streets and alleys in the region. We select the Universal Thermal Climate Evaluation Index (UTCI) as the evaluation index for microclimate comfort and construct a performance-driven automatic optimization method for street and alley spaces. The results showed that: (1) When the street is in the northeast-southwest direction, the width is taken in the range of 6.5 m–7.3 m, the height of the building on the north side of the street is about 6.0 m, and the height of the building on the south side of the street is about 5.7 m, the comfort rate can reach up to 33.8%. (2) As for street and alley intersections, the focus remains on retaining their original forms while primarily controlling the scale changes. Within streets, the height of the building in the east-west direction is controlled at 5.6 m–6.1 m, the building in the north-south direction is controlled at 7 m–7.4 m, and street widths are controlled between 5.4 m and 6.3 m, resulting in a comfort level of 32.0%; (3) In alleys, east-west building heights are kept between 4.2 m and 5.5 m, and north-south building heights range from 4.5 m to 5.3 m, with widths at around 4.5 m, resulting in a similar comfort level of 32.0%. The research outcomes offer a scientific foundation for the design, creation, and enhancement of the physical environment of local village streets and alleys.

Global climate change and urban heat islands have generated heat stress in summer, which does harm to people’s health. The outdoor public commercial pedestrianized zone has an important role in people’s daily lives, and the utilization of this space is evaluated by their outdoor thermal comfort and health. Using microclimatic monitoring and numerical simulation in a commercial pedestrianized zone in Tai Zhou, China, this study investigates people’s outdoor thermal comfort in extreme summer heat. The final results provide a comprehensive system for assessing how to improve outdoor human thermal health. Under the guidance of this system, local managers can select the most effective strategy to improve the outdoor thermal environment.

The growth of the scale of cities intensifies urban heat island (UHI) by obstructing the wind and building more radiation at pedestrian level, thus leading to an energy consumption. Commercial pedestrianized-zones cannot only become symbols of cities but also an important factor increasing local economic income. This study conducts on-site measurement and numerical simulation to evaluate the cooling energy efficiency of different parameters (building, vegetation, pavement material) in Fo Shan city, which locates in hot-summer and warm-winter climate region of China. Also, calculations are done to evaluate the index physiological equivalent temperature (PET) for understanding thermal sensation at a pedestrian level (1.5 m). To evaluate different impacts of this zone renewal on the environment and choose the most energy-saving method, it is easy for us to utilize the linear regression for understanding the relationship between coverage ratio of trees (TCR) and thermal comfort in canyon space, which shows that ∆PET = 0.1703 × TCR + 0.2444 with a most important R² value of 0.9836, for TCR increases from 12.5% to 22%. In open space, also increasing coverage ratio of trees (TCR) can effectively improve humans’ thermal comfort, which shows that ∆PET = 0.2644 × TCR + 0.3955 with a most important R² value of 0.8892.