Ask people why they avoid a particular street or plaza and they rarely say the wind. They say it feels unpleasant, that it is somewhere to hurry through rather than linger. Yet pedestrian level wind is one of the most consistent reasons outdoor space in dense cities fails, and it is largely a consequence of design decisions made long before anyone walks there.
Our study in Architectural Science Review examined the AUT City Campus, where high wind speeds meet complex urban form in the middle of Auckland. We combined 23 years of meteorological wind data with field surveys and computational fluid dynamics simulation, so that the model could be checked against what people actually experience on the ground.
Two findings matter for practice. Streets angled at around 45 degrees to the prevailing winds were the most uncomfortable for pedestrians, because that orientation accelerates and channels flow along the street. And the balance between canyon height and width proved to be a design lever rather than a given: adjusting it can turn a hostile microclimate into usable outdoor space.
The larger point is about when we ask the question. Wind assessments are too often a compliance step at the end of design, when the massing is fixed and the only remedies are screens and planting. Simulation used early, at the stage of street layout and building form, becomes design intelligence. Architects and planners can anticipate microclimatic discomfort before it is built into the city.
The framework is replicable, and it matters beyond comfort. As cities intensify, outdoor space carries more of the burden of public life, and windy, unusable streets push people indoors and into cars. Designing with the wind is part of designing cities people choose to walk in.
The work behind it
Hashemi, S., Ghaffarianhoseini, AH., GhaffarianHoseini, A., Naismith, N., Santamouris, M., and Kikumoto, H. (2025). Pedestrian-level wind speed analysis: A case study. Architectural Science Review, 68(4), 323 to 338.
The study belongs to the School’s wider work on Auckland’s urban microclimate, which also underpins the Kaitiakitanga urban microclimate digital twin.