Cooling Cities. Innovative Water-Based Cooling Systems in the Era of Urban Heat . Solutions for Outdoor Climate Adaptation

The Climate Change phenomenon continues to affect urban areas and their populations, the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI) related impacts, such as heatwaves, are known to affect the climatic conditions of cities and increase the thermal stress of citizens. This research investigates the implications of heat stress on citizens' thermal comfort by analysing the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI); and, based on well-known urban cooling principles and techniques, proposes an innovative water-based cooling system design specifically to reduce peak temperatures during heatwaves in outdoor areas, promoting enhanced spaces (urban oasis) that improve citizens' thermal comfort during heat stress conditions. Applying a research through design approach to optimise and document results in a series of iterative design-test-optimisation processes. The cooling potential of the "downdraft-evaporative-windcatcher" (DEW). Cooling Façade is simulated in a testbed combining four variables into twenty different configurations, the bestperforming configuration (in the UTCI values) is later applied to a case study in the city of Milan, Italy.