Right tree, right place, right time: A visual-functional design approach to select and place trees for optimal shade benefit to commuting pedestrians

Abstract

Australia tops the world's charts in occurrence of skin cancer and intensity of heat waves, while concurrently achieving high childhood obesity levels, due in part to low rates of physical activity. These issues converge in the challenge of protecting school children from heat and ultra-violet light exposure whilst simultaneously encouraging them to select active modes of transport for school journeys. This paper describes a new performance-based tree-scape design approach for quantifying shaded walking routes using the pedestrian accessibility modelling tool “PedestrianCatch”, combined with visual-functional tree-scape modelling for both solar impact analysis and qualitative aesthetic outco..