Horton Plaza is a six-city block shopping center development in San Diego's Historic District including an open mall area, a balcony area, and an interior courtyard. It was critically important that the environmental wind conditions through both the central mall area and near the entrances meet acceptable human comfort standards.

Our firm performed a detailed study of the wind flow in and around the buildings. A comprehensive statistical analysis of the wind speed and direction was performed to establish the average daily wind condition at the site. A scale model of the project was built and tested in a wind tunnel with the surrounding structures to quantify the wind flow pattern. Where unacceptable wind conditions were found to occur, mitigating measures in the form of wind baffles were developed to mitigate the problem.

We were also retained to study the natural ventilation properties of an existing parking structure within the proposed development. It was our task to determine if the natural ventilation of the structure produced enough airflow to render the addition of a mechanical ventilation system unnecessary. A scaled model of the parking structure and adjoining buildings were constructed and tested in the wind tunnel for this purpose.