Kasun Perera
Outdoor thermal comfort - An adaptive model to assess thermal comfort in urban outdoors in New Zealand
Kasun’s research attempts to integrate human thermal adaptation into thermal comfort assessment in order to explore the complex link between microclimate, thermal comfort, thermal adaptation, and user expectations in outdoor urban parks in New Zealand.
This study has extended the methodology to define a comprehensive human adaption scale (Combined Adaptive Factor) that combines a number of inputs related to thermal responses. The wind, sun, temperature and humidity were measured simultaneously with the survey implementation. The combined adaptive factor comprises a correlation of thermal sensations, behavioural changes and preferences to probe ‘the degree people have to adapt’ to be comfortable in different outdoor conditions. The exploration process to identify how the climate influences comfort resulted in a Thermal Adaptation Index, a linear model represented by temperature, wind, relative humidity, and solar radiation to predict comfort based on climate.
Kasun is also a registered architect in Sri Lanka and an Architectural Designer in a residential architectural practice in Wellington, New Zealand.