In collaboration with Maider Llaguno-Munitxa

Our understanding of the relationship between city morphology, materiality and urban microclimate has been limited due to the lack of availability of urban microclimate data. In order to better understand the influence of building geometries, trees, or topographical variations in urban microclimates, it is necessary to utilize measuring techniques that gather higher spatial resolution urban environmental data than that of weather stations or static sensor networks. With this purpose, this research proposes to utilize accessible low-cost technologies for environmental sensing coupled with dynamic devices. A custom sensor kit to record temperature, humidity and CO2 concentrations, has been mounted to a bike for pedestrian level microclimate sensing. The same sensing kit has been attached to an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for the vertical gradient profile measurements. Image, video processing techniques and GIS data have been utilized to visualize the recorded measurements and to parameterize the urban properties (green areas, impervious surfaces and building masses) around the acquisition trajectories.