Statement of Research Interest

Masters by thesis and PhD

Applicant’s name: Adiba Shafique

Date: 14/02/17
Department in which you plan to study: School of Landscape Architecture
Teaching and research at Lincoln University are administered though groups known as departments.
Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences
 Department of Agricultural Sciences
 Department of Ecology
 Department of Soil And Physical Sciences
 Department of Wine, Food And Molecular Biosciences
Faculty of Agribusiness And Commerce
 Department of Financial and Business Systems
 Department of Agribusiness and Markets
 Department of Global Value Chains and Trade
 Department of Land Management and Systems
Faculty of Environment, Society and Design
 Department of Informatics and Enabling Technologies
 Department of Environmental Management
 School of Landscape Architecture
 Department of Tourism, Sport and Society
 The Bio-Protection Research Centre
 Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit (AERU)
 Lincoln Agritech
Have you discussed your proposal with an academic staff member?
No - no
Yes
Name of Academic________________________________________

The statement of research interest is used by the University for three main purposes:
 Demonstrate to the university that the applicant has given proper thought to a prospective
research topic;
 Show that the applicant is up-to-speed with at least some of the contemporary literature on the
topic and can identify a ‘draft’ research question(s);
 Help the University decide on potential supervisors.

The statement should be no more than 2000 words and it must be written in your own words.

If you have already prepared a draft research proposal, you may submit this as your statement, or
describe below your proposed approach for the research, i.e. the steps you would follow to fulfil the research
aim or test the research hypotheses:

Title of Topic Area :

Thermal comfort in open public spaces: A case of humid subtropical climate

Area of research interest to be studied (no more than 400 words)

The study basically will going to deal with the experience of thermal comfort of public in open public
space like plaza, piazza or open community centres in a city which has extreme hot and cold climate like
Delhi. The aim is to research on the relationship between the thermal comfort of users in open public
spaces in humid subtropical climate and how thermal comfort is acting as a major determinant for
defining activities and making open public spaces livable.

Brief literature review (No more than 1000 words)

"The measure of any great civilization is its cities and a measure of a city's greatness is to be found in the
quality of its public spaces, its parks, and squares."- John Ruskin
From the past evidence, public spaces have always given an identity to every civilization. These spaces
have always been the focal point of the urban structure and always acts as a center for the meeting.
Greek, roman, and Indus valley civilizations are the best examples which demonstrate the importance
of public spaces in our society. According to Gehl (2006), in the history of cities, public spaces have
always been connected with the people and their activities serving as a meeting cum connecting space.
Gehl (2006), in the mid-1950, car invasion took place and it became the dominant paradigm for city
planners. They had started concentrating more on the car rather than people and public life which are
actually criticized by Jane Jacobs in her book death and life of great American cities in 1961 because
planners were filling up all the voids which were earlier used as public spaces and ultimately results into
the imbalance in city's life.
In last few decades, Certain aspects of making public spaces socially active have been well documented
in research by the architects and planners and many books are already published on it, which defines
the importance of public spaces, their parameters, case studies, innovative ideas for successful public
space. Most of the literature deals with the particular open area like the plaza, piazza, parks, etc. for
example in ‘life between buildings' book by Jan Gehl talks in terms of socio- spatial designing of open
urban spaces. His work is based on human dimensions in planning as well as the build environment‘s
and open areas effect on the social interaction between people (Gehl 2011). He also explains that how
urban spaces should be designed to encourage the social meeting through case studies. While W.H.
Whyte (1980) in ‘the social life of small urban spaces' also deals with the plaza, public squares and
piazza's and how this plaza should be designed. In this authors draw a relationship between public space
and user. The goal of this book is to create urban areas like squares that become an important gathering
place for the local community.
Moreover, for designing better open public spaces, people demand should be fulfilled. Gehl (2006)
explored that for designing public space human dimension should be the starting point of the analysis
while Carr (1992) finds comfort as one of an essential factor for designing open public space.
Furthermore, according to Whyte (1980), the most popular plaza tend to the more seating than the less
well-used ones. In addition to this, Gehl (2011) explained through case studies that how human activities
in open public space are in relation with the microclimate of that area. Hence, it is clear from the above
discussion that comfort and the open public are strongly related with each other.
According to Gehl (2011), for perceiving a city at people scale we need to prioritize the perspective of
the people. People perspective includes numerous things like their habits, their needs, their culture and
above all their comfort zone and this could be a strong reason which helps in the differentiating
hierarchy of public space of one city to another and also supports in defining the image of a city. Along
with this, I believe that human comfort plays a vital role in making public space livable. It is responsible
for creating informal public spaces and differentiating public spaces from one another. Because Public
spaces are only effective when people feel comfortable. If they are not comfortable, then they will find
alternatives which sometimes results in formation of unplanned spaces.
Recently, many researches have been conducted which draws the relationship between thermal comfort
at various climatic conditions. For instance, Spagnalo et al., (2003), studied a thermal comfort in the
outdoor and semi-outdoor environment in the subtropical region, Sydney and establish that indoor has
a lesser level of thermal comfort than outdoor. Aljawabra (2014), research on the thermal comfort in
hot and humid climate and found that physiological approach is not sufficient to access outdoor thermal
comfort in hot arid climate and thermal comfort also depends on the culture of that particular area.
Nikolopoulou et al., (2006), investigated the effect of climate on the use of outdoor spaces in seven
different European cities and found that microclimate and comfort are strongly linked with each other.
Yahai (2012), research on the relationship of thermal comfort and microclimate of open spaces in hot
and dry climate. Dayi Lai et al. (2014), held a study on thermal comfort of outdoor spaces in china and
concluded that thermal comfort varied with thermal sensation. All the above mention studies suggest
that human comfort in outdoor are subjective in a different context. The existing studies were generally
conducted either in cold or hot climate, where one type of climate is dominant and fluctuation in
temperature is quite less throughout the year. Therefore, I have selected humid subtropical region with
Delhi as pilot city, where both the summer as well as winters are in extreme conditions. I believe that it
will help in adding new dimensions to already existing research on thermal comfort in outdoor spaces
by explaining how the level of human comfort changes throughout the year in a city in different seasons.
Along with this, I will be interesting to research on the how people changing their activities and finds
alternatives in order to achieve thermal comfort.

Possible research question and objectives (No more than 200 words)

Objectives
 What are the major reasons, which thrusts inhabitants to use or not to use anymore, planned
public spaces in humid subtropical climate? What are the alternatives activities are adopted by
users to achieve comfort?
 Does thermal comfort help in the development of informal public spaces, if yes then up to which
extent it helps?
  What are the relationship of thermal comfort with the open public spaces and up to which
extent it helps in making any public space socially active by taking the example of different
public spaces of a city?
Research questions
 What are the major factors which affect users in open public space in humid subtropical
climate?
 What are the factors in open public place which make a comfortable and uncomfortable
environment in humid subtropical climate?
 Is thermal comfort is the major reason for the development of informal public spaces in humid
subtropical climate?
 How outdoor thermal comfort in open public place affecting users in humid subtropical climate
and what are the alternative measures taking by users to make themselves comfortable?

Likely methodology (no more than 400 words)

In order to achieve the aim, a set of stages are required. The whole research would be taken out in three
major stages.
1. The conceptual analysis- It includes qualitative analysis of literature review and background
study for defining research proposal and deriving suitable methodology.
2. Field study- It would be carried out in four different open public spaces of New Delhi for two
different study
a) Human behavior study- data collection through interviews, photography, and
observations for understanding human behavior.
b) Physical measurement- measurement of site thermal comfort variables through
weather station. (Includes pyranometer, humidity, thermometer, anemometer, etc.)
(Nicol,1993)
3. Conclusion- Further discussion and analysis on found data. Then final Conclusion is derived from
data analysis and its results.

References

Carr, S., 1992. Public space. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Aljawabra, F.F.(2014), The thermal comfort in hot and dry climate (Doctoral Thesis).Retrieve from

http://opus.bath.ac.uk/45407/1/Master_3_08_01_15_c.pdf

Gehl, J., 2011. Life between buildings : using public space. 6rd ed. Ed. London: Island Press.
 Gehl, J., 2006. Life between the buildings : using public space. 6th ed. Ed. Copenhagen: Danish Architectural
Press.

Jacobs, J., 1961. The life and death of great American cities. New York: Random House.

Lin, T.P., 2009. Thermal perception, adaptation and attendance in a public square in hot and humid
regions. Building and Environment, 44(10), pp. 2017-2026.

Nicol, F., 1993. Thermal Comfort: A Handbook for Field Studies towards an Adaptive Model. University of
East London.

Nikolopoulou, M. & Lykoudis, S., 2006. Thermal comfort in outdoor urban spaces: Analysis across
different European countries. Building and Environment, 41(11), pp. 1455-1470.

Spagnolo, J. & de Dear, R., 2003. A field study of thermal comfort in outdoor and semi outdoor
environments in subtropical Sydney Australia. Building and Environment, 38(5), pp. 721-738
Whyte, W.H., 1980. Social life of small urban spaces. Washington: Conservation Foundation
Yahia, M.W. (2012). Microclimate and thermal comfort of urban space in hot and dry climate
Damascus (doctoral thesis). Retrieve from
http://www.hdm.lth.se/fileadmin/hdm/Publications/Thesis_8_Microclimate_and_Thermal_Comfort.p
df

 Submission of a statement does not commit you or the University to undertake the proposed research.
Your eventual research project will emerge as the result of negotiation between you and the research
advisor(s).
• The statement is not the same as the formal research proposal you will produce for your thesis
(although the statement may be helpful in developing the full proposal).
• You are strongly urged to discuss your research interests with an advisor before submitting your
application. The advisor will be in a position to provide feedback on a draft of your statement.