With the expanding sizes of housing estates, greater importance will be attached to maximizing sunshine on the open space around housing blocks. The objective of this study is the standardization of effective planning conditions based on the number of sunshine hours, sunshine, and shadow on the play lot in relation to the housing or apartment block arrangement and tree layout. Based on the whole-day sun shadow diagrams in summer and winter of about 150 play lots in the Tama New Town Housing Estate, the changes in winter sunshine on the play lots are divided into eight patterns. A suitable block arrangement allowed sunshine to fall on the children play lots (slit effect). With regard to the relation between the use of play lots, sunshine and shadow, sunshine has been largely requested mainly for infants who require constant attention.
