Resumen de Comfort Urban Places: una propuesta para diseñar espacios únicos que proporcionan bienestar. Casos Prácticos
Igone García, Miren Karmele Herranz Pascual, Laura Gutierrez, Juan Ángel Acero, Itziar Aspuru Soloaga
Tecnalia proposes the concept of comfortable urban place (CUP®), defined as space with its own identity, adapted to the expectations and perception of citizens using it and adapted to its specific environmental conditions. CUP is also a methodology that determines the overall comfort in outdoor spaces, quantifying objective and subjective variables. It constitutes a supporting tool for decision-making in urban design, since it allows identifying challenges and opportunities, proposing ideas to face them and facilitates the comparative analysis of the benefits of different design options. The role of Tecnalia in this field is to complement the expertise of urban designers, so CUP analysis is focused on the user’s perception of the public places and on the environmental factors of comfort defined in relation to sensory perception channels. We consider that the most relevant sensory perception channels for the environmental urban comfort are following: Lighting/visual comfort; Acoustic comfort (soundscape); and Thermal comfort. To conclude, the user’s perception of the public places is inherent in the concept of comfort. Therefore, the perception variable must be integrated into the analysis of each of the environmental comfort vectors above mentioned. CUP methodology integrates the abovementioned environmental comfort variables and it allows assessing the comfort of a place through an integral comfort indicator or on the contrary to obtain a value of each comfort variable. For this aim, the methodology is carried out in two phases. The first one is the field data collection: assessment of the physic place, measuring the environmental variables and perception assessment tools. The second phase consists on the data treatment through modeling tools that allow to: Model different scenarios and take conclusions for the decision support; Provide design criteria to build more comfortable urban places and quantifying their benefits based on the results of the comfort indicators; and to Certificate the comfort of an existing urban place with the brand CUP of Tecnalia as an environmental quality award of the place. Two practical cases of how CUP has contributed to the design of the renovation of an urban space will be presented: squares in Bilbao and Basauri cities. Both cases were developed in collaboration with urban designers and the municipal responsible for public spaces. Bilbao already made the renovation of the square and citizen`s perception of the place clearly improved. CUP analysis developed by Tecnalia allows us to participate in the design of comfort in public spaces, creating singular places where citizenship enjoys, relaxes, talks, walks… They will be special and different from other places (place identity).
