Mixed-use neighborhoods layout patterns: Impact on solar access and resilience

This study investigates the impact of overall layout of mixed-use neighborhoods on two main aspects of resilience. One aspect is the neighborhoods potential to capture solar radiation, affecting their capacity to exploit solar energy and thus dependence on the main grid. The other aspect is the vulnerability of the street network to natural disasters and local disruptions such as accidents. Three prototypes of neighborhood layouts are investigated. A rectangular neighborhood, serving as base-case, while the other prototypes include a circular layout, and a hexagonal-based layout. The built-up portions of all these neighborhoods are designed with the same characteristics, but with different number of nodes and street densities. The results indicate that maintaining optimal orientations of buildings (main facade facing south +/- 30 degrees), solar access is not significantly affected by the layout (less than 3% difference). The analysis of the street network resilience is evaluated through 6 indicators relating to centrality of its nodes and 5 indicators relating to efficiency and connectivity of the network. Results suggest the disruption response of the hexagonal and circular layouts exceeds that of the rectangular layout by the majority of indicators, with the hexagonal layout outperforming the circular by a narrow margin.