Anqi Zhang

B.Arch., M.Arch., 1RA-PRC
Anqi Zhang is a PHD candidate in the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong. With the background of Master of Architecture from USC and Bachelor of Architecture from Zhejiang University, she use to work as a registered architect (1RA—PRC), and now her primary interest of research is in human
comfort in urban open spaces.

Research Topic: Pedestrian Comfort in Street and Its Relationship with Street Environment and Morphology: The Case of Hong Kong

Abstract: The urban outdoor environment plays a significant role in achieving sustainability. A comfortable outdoor urban space could benefits the city physically, environmentally, economically, and socially. In a city with extremely high density like Hong Kong, street is a more representative and frequently used public outdoor space in urban area rather than parks or plazas, but street environment and the pedestrians’ perception of comfort are often neglected in most researches of this field.

This study aims at a comprehensive research of the correlation between morphology of streets, street physical environment and street pedestrian comfort level in Hong Kong. This correlation will enhance our understanding of environment and comfort situation in Hong Kong streets and help to design more comfortable streets in the future.

Three research questions are developed based on this aim:

 1) What factors of the Hong Kong streets influent the street physical environment and pedestrians’ comfort level?

2) Since human physical comfort level could be calculated via environment data, is there any difference between the measurement results and the calculated results, why and how to calibrate?

3)How to improve the street environment and street pedestrians’ comfort from the perspective of urban design?

Typical streets in Hong Kong will be studied; environmental and pedestrians’ data will be collected; physical environmental simulation by computer is also included in the research methodology.