Urban areas are prone to extremely high temperatures as a result of climate change and the urban heat island effect. Urban micro-climate modelling has become an important tool to evaluate the effect of heat mitigating measures and develop climate-sensitive urban designs. However, many models lack the accurate fine scale simulation of evapotranspiration influence and soil moisture conditions to predict human thermal comfort (HTC).
This works objective is to better understand the coupling of the heat and water balance for micro-climate predictions of urban squares and its influence on the HTC, especially under the influence of greening. Therefore, a literature review on recent model developments was conducted. Additionally, a case study was performed for the Heat Square in the Green Village using the model VTUF-3D, chosen based on the literature review.
Five urban micro-climate models work on the fine scale water balance representation, namely ENVI-met, i-Tree Hydro+, Solene-Microclimat, ST, and VTUF-3D. ENVI-met offers comprehensive analysis options of greening solutions and user-friendliness, while VTUF-3D excels in detailing soil and plant characteristics. Given the detailed water balance simulation and the accurate trend prediction for the latent heat flux, it is expected that greening effects on the urban micro-climate of the Heat Square can be predicted accurately with VTUF-3D, if not for spatial and human thermal comfort assessment.
The reviewed models require further model development towards a comprehensive water balance representation and related greening analysis options. Additionally, further efforts towards model applicability are needed, including validation and user-friendliness. VTUF-3D requires improvement of spatial variability representation and HTC prediction.
Note, the literature review is no holistic assessment and does not provide a conclusion on the overall performance of the models. The case study was limited in model feature configuration.

Concrete is affected by a variety of environmental factors, and its temperature varies with time and other meteorological factors. The subsequent construction of the Heat Square is supported by an analysis of concrete temperature changes and their environmental influences. This article evaluates the variation of concrete block temperature by two months of field measurements at the Heat Square and meteorological data from The Green Village. The temperature of the concrete bricks changed asymmetrically, with the cooling time being much longer than the warming time. The maximum temperature occurred in the early morning after sunset, with a 3-hour time delay between changes in concrete temperature. By using partial correlation analysis, the most significant influence of meteorological factors on the surface temperature was the air temperature and the least influence of changes in relative humidity on the surface temperature. The article's analysis offers two suggestions for the Heat Square's construction: (1) Include measurements of near-surface wind speed. (2) Combine temperature measurements taken at various depths. (3) Subsequent research can explore the cooling effect by analyzing the shading effect of plants.

In order to study the effects of Urban Heat Island and the possibilities of combating it with Vegetation Cooling, this thesis project proposes the use of available tools/information in Building Information Modelling. By building on an empirically validated model for the calculation of UHI, this project undertakes the translation of that model into the digital environment. By automating calculations and applying them to larger scales, the project then evaluates the validity of the initial model through a satellite thermal imagery comparison. Throughout the undertaking, much is experienced regarding the difficulties of BIM implementation in projects, which is later reflected upon.