Outdoor neutral temperature assessment within Deakin University campus at Melbourne City, Australia

Outdoor thermal comfort is an effective attribute to the success of urban places. Various studies were employed to examine thermal perception and preferences of users within different geographical, functional, and climatic contexts. The complexity of the research led to the adoption of various definitions for terms and analysis methods even for similar benchmarks. However, to move forward with this topic, it is crucial to identify and when possible unify the different methods of analysis that are found to be accurate and reliable. This paper attempts to review the outdoor thermal comfort benchmark used in identifying users’ thermal perception. Neutral temperature representing a main outdoor thermal comfort benchmark will be calculated for users in an educational campus in Melbourne city, Australia. The analysis is based on both the climatic characteristics of the place and the users’ thermal sensation votes. The results of the different methods used to calculate this benchmark are then compared and analysed. The findings showed a variation in the calculated neutral temperatures using different methods, yet they were all within the acceptable calculated temperature. These findings are to help urban decision makers in designing comfortable outdoor urban places