A Study on New Urban Design Process Incorporating Urban Cooling Effects Verification Models for Historical Town Southeast Asia

Malacca city has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage and became one of the popular tourist destinations in Malaysia. However green and open spaces are very limited within the designated area. Additionally, chronic traffic congestion is caused by the continuous traffic through the narrow streets, and the heat environment is getting worse. The aim of this study is to develop a new approach for urban design process, which considers landscape conservation and urban cooling effects, in order to accomplish a positive cycle for further town value improvement through increasing green spaces and walkability. As the result, it is confirmed the level of air and surface temperature reduction by overlaid shadow cast through street planting along the pedestrian walkway. Additionally, it became clear that the extent of changes of traffic heat emission on each street based on the environmental amelioration scenario could contribute to reduce traffic volume.