Clustering tall building typologies and analyzing their composite impacts on wind environments in infill development projects

Infill development has emerged as a prominent strategy for revitalizing aging urban districts. Nevertheless, the construction of new tall buildings can introduce significant nuisance issues for habitability, and predicting the wind performance of various building typologies is challenging due to their diverse aerodynamic characteristics. Our study addresses three pivotal research questions by investigating the impacts of 34 tall building typologies within an established urban context: (1) To what spatial extent does the construction of new tall buildings significantly affect their surrounding urban wind environment? (2) How do different building typologies modify pedestrian-level wind behaviors and the surrounding buildings’ outdoor and indoor ventilation potentials? (3) What are the similarities and differences among these building typologies, and how can they inform design practices? Our findings reveal that tall buildings, depending on their typology, can significantly alter the wind environment within a radius of 2 times their height. Specifically, cross-shaped, T-shaped, and two-tapered building models can increase pedestrian-level wind speeds by 50–75%, whereas helical and circular building types can enhance the outdoor ventilation potential of the neighborhood by 10–20%. A self-organizing map clustering analysis was conducted to classify building typologies into 6 groups, revealing that different groups exhibit distinct wind performance characteristics. Rectangular buildings have a significant impact on the pedestrian wind environment, while helical and circular typologies demonstrate more balanced wind behaviors. Key geometric factors influencing the classification of typologies were identified to provide designers with preliminary insights into building performance during the early stages of an infill development project.