Green Urban Design to Enhance Children's Urban Liveability: A Correlation of Urban Spatial Configuration and Outdoor Thermal Comfort in El Khroub

Abstract

Green Urban Design (GUD) is a sustainable planning approach that integrates ecological principles to minimise environmental impacts while promoting long-term urban sustainability and meeting essential urban needs. Two of the primary mechanisms through which GUD achieves this are Urban Spatial Configuration (USC) and Outdoor Thermal Comfort (OTC), which jointly condition how, when, and whether children inhabit urban spaces. Within this framework, USC and OTC are the core focus of this dissertation, as both play pivotal roles in shaping Children's Urban Liveability (CUL), with direct implications for their well-being. In the present study, USC is examined through the analysis of spatial configuration, understood as the structural organisation of outdoor places. Internationally, OTC and spatial configuration are often examined as separate research domains, and studies that integrate both perspectives remain limited. Spatial configuration research typically focuses on movement patterns, accessibility, and spatial connectivity, whereas OTC studies primarily address microclimatic conditions and thermal mitigation strategies. Consequently, limited attention has been given to how the spatial configuration of outdoor places interacts with microclimatic conditions to influence CUL. This gap is particularly pronounced in semi-arid urban contexts such as El Khroub, Algeria, where empirical evidence on how these factors collectively influence CUL remains scarce. As a result, urban planners and designers lack clear evidence regarding which environmental factors most strongly shape children’s use and spatial behaviour in outdoor places, limiting the development of child-friendly cities. Conceptually, spatial configuration represents a relatively stable structural property of outdoor places, whereas OTC varies dynamically across space and time in response to climatic conditions. This interaction suggests that children’s patterns of space use may fluctuate throughout the day as thermal conditions change. Highly accessible areas may become underused during periods of thermal discomfort, while thermally favourable but less connected areas may attract higher levels of children’s activity. In response to this research gap, this study investigates how OTC and spatial configuration jointly shape CUL in three outdoor places in El Khroub, the Square, Snoberland, and Martyr Plaza, during typical summer and winter weeks. A hybrid methodological design was adopted to combine measurable environmental data with children’s lived experience. The quantitative strand included in-situ measurements of thermal parameters, UTCI-based comfort modelling through a Rhinoceros workflow, and Space Syntax analysis using DepthmapX to assess Topological Choice (TC) and Visual Integration (VI). Behavioural mapping was conducted in parallel to document children’s spatial use and activity patterns across the three sites. The qualitative strand included questionnaires with children and caregivers to capture thermal perceptions and spatial experiences, together with participatory drawing exercises through which children expressed their preferred improvements for each outdoor place. In the final analytical stage, the OTC parameters are correlated with spatial configuration indices to assess their respective contributions to CUL. The findings show that, although both thermal conditions and spatial structure influence children’s outdoor use, OTC has a stronger short-term effect. This highlights the need for child-responsive and climate-sensitive public space design that integrates OTC with spatial configuration to support CUL.