A Multi-Objective Optimization Method for High-Rise Residential Wind Environments Using NSGA-II–MOPSO

Outdoor pedestrian wind comfort and indoor natural ventilation are important aspects of wind environment performance in high-rise residential developments. However, the two objectives are evaluated in different spatial domains and may exhibit inconsistent responses to changes in design parameters. Identifying solutions that balance both objectives through conventional trial-and-error design becomes increasingly difficult as the number of variables and candidate combinations increases. This study develops a multi-objective optimization method that integrates parametric modeling, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and a hybrid NSGA-II–MOPSO algorithm to coordinate outdoor and indoor wind performance. Building positions, orientations, and window locations are represented by a 13-dimensional design vector. Outdoor pedestrian wind comfort and indoor natural ventilation are quantified using two objective functions, DCTCout and DCTCin, defined as the ratios of evaluation points outside the prescribed comfort ranges to those within them. Indoor simulations use façade pressures obtained from the outdoor CFD calculations as boundary inputs. The method is applied to a planned high-rise residential development in Chongqing, China. The optimization used a population of 25 candidate designs over 50 generations, yielding 1250 CFD-evaluated designs. The population mean values of DCTCout and DCTCin decreased by 16.25% and 17.62%, respectively, while their best-so-far values reached 2.14888 and 0.52469. Nine solutions remained on the final first non-dominated front, representing different trade-offs between outdoor and indoor performance. Compared with the outdoor-priority solution, the compromise solution increased DCTCout by only 3.81% while reducing DCTCin by 22.81%. Further improvement in indoor performance was accompanied by a substantially greater deterioration in outdoor performance. The results support the joint consideration of residential layout and opening design when outdoor and indoor wind performance are evaluated simultaneously.