Integrating Villagers’ Needs and CFD Simulation for Outdoor Thermal Comfort Optimization in a New Rural Community: A Case Study of Zhengdong Village, Yancheng, China

Improving environmental comfort in newly built rural communities requires aligning microclimate interventions with residents’ actual needs. This study investigates Zhengdong Village, Yancheng, China, in the hot-summer/cold-winter climate zone using a mixed-method framework that combines a villager questionnaire (171 valid responses), field meteorological measurements, exploratory factor analysis, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation with WindPerfectDX. The survey identified three closely weighted dimensions of environmental comfort: human perception (34.53%), built environment (32.64%), and behavioral response (32.83%). Model verification showed mean relative errors of 3.2% for wind speed and 2.1% for air temperature. The cross-evidence diagnosis identified two priority mismatches: villagers reported low summer wind comfort and cooling satisfaction, while the densely built Area C contained persistent low-wind zones below 0.5 m/s; meanwhile, heat-related dissatisfaction coincided with simulated midday SET* values above 40 °C in exposed parts of Areas A and B. Comparing the two simulation scenarios, increased vegetation coverage reduced local thermal stress and lowered SET* by approximately 3-5 °C, but did not eliminate ventilation dead zones, demonstrating a cooling–ventilation trade-off. The results support a combined renewal strategy involving targeted shading vegetation, reduced hard paving, protected ventilation paths, age-friendly shaded resting spaces, and participatory maintenance mechanisms. The study provides an integrated demand–microclimate framework for climate-adaptive renewal of new rural communities.