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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Tatiana Alvares-SanchesORCiD
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Driven by the goals of reducing carbon emissions, energy security and affordability in an era of a changing climate, modern housing policy was implemented to achieve efficient buildings. Such policies resulted in new and retrofitted buildings having sealed envelopes with less natural ventilation. Although this is beneficial in winter months there is a danger that during summer months these buildings will overheat, exposing people to increasing risks of heat stress. This may be even more severe within urban environments due to the urban heat island effect. As a result, more affluent residents may respond by installing air conditioning in their homes that increase carbon emissions and defeat policy objectives. Others will just open their windows in an attempt to cool down, however, at the expense of being exposed to other environmental stressors such as noise and air pollution. This is set to get worse as the urban population grows and the demand for urban dwellings increases, resulting in densified cities. This will further exacerbate the heat island effect and create even noisier environments, resulting in tensions for residents who are forced to open their windows to keep cool and whose health may ultimately be affected. In this paper, we use a combination of data gathered from field surveys, open-source data and our previous published studies to examine the impact of energy efficiency policies and a focus on apartment-based regeneration at the city-scale and ask what can be done to mitigate the unintended consequences. Geospatial analyses were undertaken at the neighbourhood scale within the city of Southampton, UK, to examine whether neighbourhoods with a high proportion of modern dwellings and associated higher EPC ratings suffer higher heat island effects and exposure to noise at the façade of the buildings. The analysis overlays heat island effects, noise levels and buildings with high EPCs to identify where they coincide within the city. Preliminary results indicate that buildings at higher risk of summer overheating (i.e. EPC ratings of at least B) are generally newer or retrofitted buildings, which tend to be located in warmer and noisier parts of the city. These are predominantly apartment-based regeneration projects on brownfield sites. Looking towards the future, we consider what can be done at the both the neighbourhood scale and within the building design itself to help meet current policy objectives, while making regeneration projects and individual dwellings more adaptive to a densified, noisy urban environment within a changing climate.Driven by the goals of reducing carbon emissions, energy security and affordability in an era of a changing climate, modern housing policy was implemented to achieve efficient buildings. Such policies resulted in new and retrofitted buildings having sealed envelopes with less natural ventilation. Although this is beneficial in winter months there is a danger that during summer months these buildings will overheat, exposing people to increasing risks of heat stress. This may be even more severe within urban environments due to the urban heat island effect. As a result, more affluent residents may respond by installing air conditioning in their homes that increase carbon emissions and defeat policy objectives. Others will just open their windows in an attempt to cool down, however, at the expense of being exposed to other environmental stressors such as noise and air pollution. This is set to get worse as the urban population grows and the demand for urban dwellings increases, resulting in densified cities. This will further exacerbate the heat island effect and create even noisier environments, resulting in tensions for residents who are forced to open their windows to keep cool and whose health may ultimately be affected. In this paper, we use a combination of data gathered from field surveys, open-source data and our previous published studies to examine the impact of energy efficiency policies and a focus on apartment-based regeneration at the city-scale and ask what can be done to mitigate the unintended consequences. Geospatial analyses were undertaken at the neighbourhood scale within the city of Southampton, UK, to examine whether neighbourhoods with a high proportion of modern dwellings and associated higher EPC ratings suffer higher heat island effects and exposure to noise at the façade of the buildings. The analysis overlays heat island effects, noise levels and buildings with high EPCs to identify where they coincide within the city. Preliminary results indicate that buildings at higher risk of summer overheating (i.e. EPC ratings of at least B) are generally newer or retrofitted buildings, which tend to be located in warmer and noisier parts of the city. These are predominantly apartment-based regeneration projects on brownfield sites. Looking towards the future, we consider what can be done at the both the neighbourhood scale and within the building design itself to help meet current policy objectives, while making regeneration projects and individual dwellings more adaptive to a densified, noisy urban environment within a changing climate.
Author(s): Alvares-Sanches T, Osborne P, James P, Bahaj AS
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: International Conference on Evolving Cities (ICEC 2019)
Year of Conference: 2019
Online publication date: 18/07/2019
Acceptance date: 10/05/2019
