Project Framework

With the current climate change scenarios and an ever-growing urban population, the climate resilience of cities is becoming a growing concern. In the Nordics, a main issue of climate adaptation has been stormwater management, while heat adaptation has been of lesser concern due to its cooler climate. However, with growing temperatures heat is set to become an increased problem and should be considered in public space design alongside established considerations of seasonality in these parts of the world.

According to climate studies, the temperature in Scandinavia is predicted to be larger than the global mean due to its high latitude, an effect called Arctic amplification. The Swedish Meteorological Institute projects based on a likely emission scenario (RCP 4.5) a temperature increase in Skåne during the summer months of 2.2°C by 2070. With the warming that has already occurred, this means a temperature increase of over 3°C. In addition to increasing temperatures and extreme weather events, heat waves like the one in 2018, which currently occurs about every 10 years, might be so common to occur every 5 years instead.

It is our goal to raise awareness about the importance of microclimate in climate-responsive design in order to make cities more heat resilient. Microclimate phenomena are largely invisible and research about microclimates is often complex and technical, both making it hard to apply microclimate considerations in practice. Additionally, practitioners have limited time and professional resources to research relevant scientific evidence for their design outcomes and move beyond intuitively planning thermally comfortable spaces. Therefore there might be an ’application gap’ between the microclimate knowledge and applied climate-responsive urban design. The aim of this project is to explore ways of bridging this gap.

We identify a research gap within this field of investigation in the Nordic context, where the need for design solutions are to be specifically more flexible, multi-functional and less permanent to accommodate the wide range of weather present in the future of the Nordics. We limit our scope by focusing on public squares with high numbers of users. As the aspect of microclimates that has been less considered in the Nordics is heat stress mitigation, we emphasize on awareness in planning for the thermal microclimate. However, it is impossible to address this without acknowledging other climatic elements such as wind, sun radiation etc., which play into temperature. We seek to create a project of inspirations aimed at giving an overview of the topic and potential solutions on the example of two case studies in Malmö. This leads us to our research question:

To address our aim and question, we initially conducted a literary review on microclimates and the Nordic climatic context. To elaborate on this, we conduct a case study within Malmö, Sweden. Despite not being fully representative of Nordic climate conditions, the area was most accessible allowing for a more thorough analysis. The original methodology was to use Autodesk Forma as simulation software, which was a new and unfamiliar tool to us. However, as Forma is under development some features were still limited, notably the option to input surfaces and detailed vegetation was missing. Hence, we added the use of ENVI-met, a program more specifically developed towards microclimates providing these options. Hence, we used a mix of the two program's outputs for the temperate microclimate, and Forma for stronger visual outputs regarding wind and solar conditions. Our data collection was done through various observations and sources,  see the details of our data origin under analysis.

We merge our case study analysis with a broader microclimate cooling interventions review. Through collecting various existing examples of interventions, we categorize them into 5 main areas: shading, pavement, vegetation, water and wind. This information is summarized into design guidelines and brought into a more Nordic climatic context, as well as integrated in our case study proposals. 

Considering our scope and constraints, Nordic microclimate research is covered to an introductory extent in our research with much further potential. We specifically focused on public squares as these are people-heavy spaces exposing more to heat stress, excluding the intricacies of other urban spaces. Furthermore, we orient our exemplary interventions to the increase in temperature in the warmer months, limiting other considerations of climate change impact on urban microclimates throughout the year. 

In terms of limitations for our case study specifically, we cover a specific southern coastal city within the Nordics, not representing the full scope of climate conditions throughout. The programs used for simulating are the limited free versions, and hence impact the accuracy and resolution of our output. Further, it was not within the scope of this project to actually verify the accuracy of the simulations done with measurements on site.

Due to this project being more of an introductory overview of the topic and our own limited experience, the case study proposals are mostly suggestive, and do not give a full overview of the potential implications of the interventions as we are not designers. Our project remains a product intended for awareness and inspiration, and further projects or research could build on this by doing a more holistic investigation providing more concrete suggestions.  Furthermore, our evaluation of our proposals was limited by our chosen programs not being capable of simulating them, but only simulating existing conditions. However, there is potential in using such and other simulation software to evaluate different proposals. Especially because it is possible to test different microclimate interventions and configurations. For a recent (Nordic) example of how this can be done we refer to the work by white arkitekter on their plan for the new central square of Kiruna (link). 

Our aim was to increase microclimate considerations in Nordic urban planning to address the growing risks of heat stress through an introduction to the topic and an overview of adaptation strategies. Communicating this through the flexible form of a website allows us to continuously adapt with time. The research question which we formulated to explore this topic is answered through the example of our case study in Malmö. We made suggestions through proposals to inspire public space design that adapts to the future thermal conditions. However, because every place has unique conditions and it was not the scope of this project to consider the full range of Nordic urban climate conditions, our recommendations are not standardized or definitive. Nonetheless, the cases reflect how these contexts generally should emphasize the strongly contrasting seasons through flexible and temporary strategies. 

Public space interventions have the potential to influence the well-being and health of residents significantly. Since the presented interventions can be implemented on different scales, they can be planned in the short and long term. As planners and designers, we have to keep future climate conditions in mind and be prepared for the worst.