Outdoor Thermal and Visual Perception of Natural Cool Materials for Roof and Urban Paving

Abstract Given the acknowledged thermal performance of natural light color gravels applied as cool roof and cool urban paving, this work is aimed at investigating if such behavior is perceivable by pedestrians, who are questioned in this paper about their visual and thermal comfort perception. In fact, there are still related aspects to analyze, in order to optimize their application and provide a comfortable space for users, both on the thermal and the visual point of view. Therefore, the question that this work wants to answer is: given their intrinsic characteristics, do these materials create a sensitive thermally and visually more comfortable environment for pedestrians? In order to address this uninvestigated issue, users’ judgment about visual and thermal comfort of these surfaces is considered, also by comparing them with grassland and asphalt. Also, the statistical correspondence between physical properties of such materials and possible correspondence with respect to human perception with varying weather conditions is analyzed. Given the relatively high reflectance of these materials, it appears particularly important to evaluate these aspects, to consciously apply them as urban paving or roof covering by optimizing their natural passive cooling potential. In this preliminary study, users’ response to these surfaces is evaluated by mean of field surveys, both on the thermal and the visual evaluation, and contemporary in-field measurements of surface parameters. Also, human perception with respect to these high-reflectance surfaces’ is compared with the one related to grassland and asphalt, with varying weather conditions. Then, a statistical analysis is performed to investigate the differences among different gravels, grassland and asphalt, based on surveys’ results. The results show how pedestrians, questioned during summer days, prefer grassland, while asphalt is the less favorite surface both visually and thermally; there is a small difference between gravels’ types evaluation, while weather variability affect the preferences.