The Effect of Different Cover and Flooring Materials on Climatic Comfort in Landscape Design

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to understand the effects of structural and vegetative elements that can be used in landscape designs on the temperature factor, which will greatly affect the climatic comfort, by using artificial neural networks. In this context, measurements were carried out in the morning (08:00-09:00), noon (13:00-14:00) and evening (17:00-18:00) of a total of 100 days, 50 days in each of the winter and summer seasons, at 7 randomly selected points in the Akdeniz University Campus. In these measurements, the temperature difference values of 11 cover elements on 7 different floor covering types were measured, and the ambient air temperature, humidity and wind values were also determined. The temperature differences between the areas where the flooring elements are exposed to direct sun and the shadow effect of different plant and cover elements were determined using an infrared laser thermometer. These values were processed with Neural Designer software and possible temperature difference prediction values were created for 57.750 different alternatives with the help of artificial neural network model from 837 sets of data. Evaluation shows that the maximum temperature difference is 15.6°C at noon in the summer months in the red tartan flooring material and Callistemon viminalis cover material. While the artificial neural network model predicts that there will be a high 2-3° C temperature difference for the alternatives, it has made predictions for temperature differences between 0-10°C in winter and 0-16°C in summer months. Although the temperature differences that will occur in the noon hours are distributed over a wide range of values, it seems that the morning and evening forecasts are concentrated between 0-7°C values. Also, it has been determined that the wind and humidity in the environment are more important factors than the ambient temperature in terms of temperature differences.