Traditional desert cities used a compact urban form since it provides benefits in terms of thermal comfort both in urban and interior spaces. However, many current desert cities have shifted to a sprawling model with isolated low-rise buildings, leading to longer travel distances, increased land use, inadequate public space, and higher demand for building cooling. Our study aims to investigate how vertical urban densification can reduce residential cooling demand in hot-dry regions. To achieve this, we compared single-family houses with high-rise multi-family houses in Hermosillo, Mexico. Eight case studies of real houses were selected, representing the city's building stock, including one- and two-story single-family houses, and high-rise multi-family houses. We use dynamic energy simulations to assess the effectiveness of changing building's shape against improving its insulation. Our results indicate that increasing vertical density leads to a reduction in the envelope-to-volume ratio, resulting in a significant decrease in cooling demand. Moving from a one-story single-family house to a high-rise multi-family house can lead to a 72 % reduction in annual cooling demand. Matching the façade material properties of single-family houses and multi-family houses reduces the cooling demands of the single-family houses by 16 %–31 %. However, they still have higher cooling demands compared to high-rise multi-family houses, suggesting that building form has a greater impact on cooling than thermal insulation. Our findings highlight the substantial energy savings achievable by transitioning from detached single-family houses to high-rise multi-family developments in desert cities.

中文翻译：

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通过城市垂直致密化减少庞大沙漠城市的住宅冷却需求


传统的沙漠城市采用紧凑的城市形态，因为它在城市和室内空间的热舒适性方面都有好处。然而，目前许多沙漠城市已经转向以孤立的低层建筑为主的蔓延模式，导致出行距离更长、土地使用增加、公共空间不足以及对建筑制冷的更高需求。我们的研究旨在调查垂直城市致密化如何减少干热地区的住宅冷却需求。为了实现这一目标，我们将墨西哥埃莫西约的单户住宅与高层多户住宅进行了比较。选择了八个真实房屋的案例研究，代表了该市的建筑存量，包括一层和两层独栋住宅以及高层多户住宅。我们使用动态能量模拟来评估改变建筑物形状对改善其隔热效果的有效性。我们的结果表明，增加垂直密度会导致围护结构与体积比的减小，从而导致冷却需求显着减少。从单层单户住宅搬迁至高层多户住宅可导致年度制冷需求减少 72%。匹配独栋住宅和多户住宅的外墙材料特性，可将独栋住宅的冷却需求降低16%–31%。然而，与高层多户住宅相比，它们仍然具有更高的冷却需求，这表明建筑形式对冷却的影响大于隔热。我们的研究结果强调了沙漠城市从独立单户住宅过渡到高层多户住宅开发可以实现大量节能。