The Effect Of Cross-cultural Differences On The Thermal Comfort Of University Campus Open Spaces

Campus open space is the main place for college students’outdoor activities,which plays a positive role in of promoting physical and mental health of teachers and students.More and more foreign students appear in the university campus of our country.How to create a comfortable space suitable for Chinese and foreign students to carry out outdoor activities is worthy of our attention and exploration.This study aims to identify outdoor thermal comfort differences between Chinese group（CG）and Pakistani group（PG）with different thermal perception and ther-mal adaption backgrounds on a campus in Xi’an,a city in the cold region of China.A thermal comfort questionnaire survey and meteorological measurement were carried out in five campus open spaces during winter,spring and summer.The Universal Thermal Climate Index（UTCI）was approximated to detect differences between CG and PG at a neutral temperature,neutral temperature range,preferred temperature,thermal acceptability range and thermal adaptation behaviors.Re-sults demonstrated that:1)Clothing insulation of PG was lower than that of CG among seasons.2)The globe temperature was the primary correlate of thermal comfort for both groups(ρ_CG=0.866 andρ_PG=0.744).3)The neutral UTCI of PG（22.4℃）was higher than that of CG（20.4℃）.The preferred UTCI of PG（19.8℃）was 3.5℃lower than that of CG（23.3℃）.The neutral UTCI range of PG（16.2-28.6℃）was higher and wider compared to that of CG（15.1-25.7℃）.4)The ther-mal acceptability range of PG（12.9-28.9℃）was wider than that of CG（15.8-28.5℃）.5)PG managed thermal discomfort with clothing and hot/cold drinks as appropriate,while CG preferred changing location and appropriate clothing.6)In winter,the waterfront open square can be used as the preferred venue for CG,while the enclosed space and waterfront open square can be used as the preferred venue for PG.In spring,enclosed space,corridor space and tree square can all be used as the preferred venue for CG and PG.In summer,the corridor space can be used as the preferred venue for CG and PG.Our results show that cross-cultural differences in thermal comfort should affect recommendations for open spaces design on multicultural campuses in China’s cold region.