THE INFLUENCE OF URBAN PARAMETERS FOR MULTI-FLOOR BUILDINGS ON URBAN MICROCLIMATES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN JIGAGE, SETBACK AND SHAPE
Urban Climate. Verticalization. Urban parameters. Urbanlegislation. Computer Simulation.
Faced with the rapid increase in population in urban areas, verticalization has emerged as an
alternative to the densification of cities. Thus, it promotes environmental transformations and
modifies the urban climate, affecting the balance between nature and society. Since the impacts
of city expansion are inevitable, urban planning plays an important role in mitigating and
adapting to climate change, seeking a balance between the gains and losses arising from
urbanization and building density through the definition of urban parameter which are
responsablefor the production of urban space and configuration of the landscape. In this context,
the present research aimed to identify solutions for adapting verticalization to the climatic
characteristics of ZR-4 in Maceió based on the comparison of scenarios determined by the urban
parameters of the 2007 Urbanism and Buildings Code and the Draft of the Master Plan of 2021.
This was possible through computer simulations of hypothetical urban scenarios, using the
ENVI-met 4.0 software. Based on the aforementioned legislations’sparameters hypothetical
scenarios were elaborated under the condition of using the utilization coefficient and the
occupancy rate to the maximum, modifying the geometry of the urban canyon. The initial partial
analyzes indicated that in the current urban legislation, progressive retreat restricts the
exploration of the limits of other parameters (AC and OT) and, sometimes, makes vertical
construction unfeasible by delimiting the floor area. The parameters of the 2021 Master Plan
Draft, in addition to being higher, have fixed setbacks, allowing for greater occupation of the
lot and, consequently, more dense urban scenarios, reducing the porosity of the area under
study. This new one is expected to have effects on street shading and natural ventilation. The
next stages of this research rely on the computational simulation in ENVI-met and the analysis
of the resulting data, in order to identify whether the proposal of the new Master Plan offers, in
fact, a sensible alternative to vertical consolidation, mitigating the negative effects that
urbanization can affect the microclimate.