Effect of personal and cultural diversity on outdoor thermal comfort perception

The urban squares are the gathering places where people interact with each other. Therefore, they are seen as important places contributing in the integration and social cohesion within societies. To ensure equality in urban places, designers are to take into considerations the need of the diverse nature of different users. This task is hard especially in global cities where populations are characterized by their cultural plurality. To ensure the creation of successful urban places, the designer is to take the comfort of users into consideration. However, the outdoor thermal comfort is not easily assessed as it examines the climatic and personal variables for users. This paper aims to contribute in assessing the thermal comfort for users of different personal and cultural background in Melbourne city, Australia as one of the global cities characterized by the diversity and plurality of its population due to migration. A case study approach is adopted to examine the users’ thermal comfort within the contextual variables of Federation Square. Multiple sources of evidence such as climate measurements, observations and questionnaires will be used to ensure the validity of results. The findings are to contribute in the quality and equality of design for outdoor urban places in multicultural cities.