Effects of horizontal dilation of urban space on shading efficiency in the Muscat region

The contemporary urban space of Muscat displays horizontal sprawl with overextended horizontal proportions causing pedestrian discomfort due to lack of solar shading in the hot environment. Urban space boundaries usually described by its floor and surrounding buildings, but in this work, was abstracted into basic hypothetical box formed of a floor and four fictitious walls. A mathematical model was developed to investigate the effect of dilation on the floor of urban space to identify the horizontal dilation limits that keep the walls’ shading feasible for the pedestrian in the hot climate. The study concludes that the dilation along E/W direction is relatively more efficient than N/S direction. A further conclusion is that the performance of urban spaces modules was not due to the accumulative performances of all walls, but instead, due to the combination-specific effective walls, the U-shape towards north was for the floor directed to the north. While, when the floor rotated 45° the efficient form was L-shape facing the north. In the case of existing urban spaces with immense horizontal proportions, it was suggested to partition the urban space into smaller areas by a vertical divider such as trees.