Smart City Applications: Promoting comfort, health and well-being through Sustainable Smart Urban Design (S2UD) in Msheireb Downtown

Abstract

This study explores the Msheireb Downtown Project by studying the design qualities and adopted applications of its public open spaces (POS). We uncover their roles in the smart city design system with an eye for how they provide Msheireb Downtown with a sustainable smart city specification that promotes user comfort, health and well-being. Along these lines, we discuss the technical solutions applied to deal with different environmental conditions. In order to do so, an evaluation criteria framework was designed and developed and, moreover, tested and validated through its application in Msheireb Downtown. Accordingly, we used a combined method - namely, quantitative and qualitative/physical and perceptual - to capture, synthesize and assess Msheireb's open spaces and their effects on user comfort, health and well-being.