Solar access, passive cooling and microclimate in the city: the Polis project.

This paper describes a European project to produce comprehensive design guidance on urban layout to ensure good access to solar gain, daylighting and passive cooling. The project involves:

1. A comprehensive, integrated analysis of all solar and microclimatic aspects of urban layout, including pollution;
2. Development of a major computer based design tool to evaluate solar access and wind patterns within urban configurations in Europe, and simple manual tools to calculate solar access and daylight availability on obstructed sites;
3. Selected case studies, including two major case studies of southern European sites, to test and refine the guidance;
4. Production of an illustrated design guide, papers and presentations communicating the results.