OPTIMIZING OUTDOOR SPACES: LANDSCAPE ELEMENTS FOR THERMAL COMFORT IN HEALING GARDENS

Healthcare architecture emphasizes the significance of outdoor spaces, particularly healing gardens.This study focuses on improving the thermal environment of such gardens, crucial in extreme climate regions.Although hot summers and cold winters pose challenges, landscape elements such as greenery and water bodies provide effective solutions.Using Envi-met modeling, this research quantitatively evaluates the impact of landscape elements on thermal comfort in China.It presents three sets of cases, each with three schemes, evaluating their effectiveness.Findings demonstrate that water features significantly outperform trees and lawns in enhancing thermal comfort.Compared to lawns, water features lower air temperatures by 4.9C in summer and raise them by 2.4C in winter.Their cooling effect extends up to 32 m, notably in leeward areas.Comfort studies show that the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) remains below 38C above water bodies on hot summer days, indicating a warm state, and exceeds 15C at noon in winter, indicating a neutral state.Trees provide shade in summer and block winds in winter, further enhancing comfort.These insights are vital for designing therapeutic garden landscapes, informing design guidelines.