As often ignored when designing architecture, landscape design and urban design, the air and the temperature of the environment that fill in the voids of our surroundings are often the agencies of what create ‘thermal delight’ around us. Our group aims to assess the microclimates of our most shared outdoor space, the Gund backyard, and map out thermal comfort and human well-being as transient and permanent objects.

As an initial form finding process, we used two sets of data and simulation results: pedestrian wind analysis and UTCI (Universal thermal climate index) map. The two false color maps were then translated into 3-dimensional geometries that formulate a spatial map of the atmospheric environment at the GSD backyard. The UTCI map was redefined as a permanent landscape of extruded pixels, corresponding to the intensity values of the thermal comfort. The pedestrian wind analysis was also reevaluated and transformed as series of point clouds, moving through the new landscape at varied density corresponding to the magnitude of wind.