It is important for engineering applications that we evaluate the thermal environment based on long-term tracking and investment. Methods merging environmental, physiological, and psychological domains to implement a human-centered approach were applied in this study to assess the outdoor thermal environment in a park. The constant influence of humans in the outdoor environment can change people’s physiological, psychological, and thermal responses. Additionally, the relationship between human physiological, psychological, and thermal factors was explored in this study. The results of this study provide the following findings: (1) In summer, subjects’ skin temperature increased by 0.35 to 2.83 °C during a one-hour outdoor test without shelter, while when tree shade was provided, subjects’ skin temperature dropped by 0.50 to 1.87 °C (except for motion segments). (2) In winter, if subjects stayed outdoors for 1 h, their body segments’ skin temperature dropped by a maximum of 7.93 °C. (3) When subjects went outside, in the early stage, their thermal responses fluctuated for a long time. Therefore, TSV, TCV, and TAV should be measured after they stay outdoors for 45 to 55 min in future studies. (4) Different body segments show different sensitivities to hot or cold. Considering this, a new group of formulas for mean skin temperature calculation are proposed with high accuracy (winter: 0.95; summer: 0.89). (5) Data for the one-hour change in different assessment indicators provide a good viewpoint for park design considering multiple aims such as comfort (TCV), pleasure (EVI), and increasing energy (PFI). Overall, this study took Stalin Waterfront Park as a case study, and some suggestions involving landscaping nodes, space types, and facilities are offered. Moreover, this study provides a novel theory and reasonable method that can be referred to in urban planning and landscape design.

The waterfront park in northern China always has two parallel leisure pathways, a sunshine pathway and a tree-shaded pathway, which is attributed to the seasonal variations in water level. To provide some design suggestions according to the local characteristics of the waterfront park in northern China, this study selected six young volunteers to take part in an outdoor field experiment and a questionnaire survey in Stalin Park of Songhua River in Harbin, China. During the experiment, the volunteers’ local skin temperature and core temperature were recorded, with their subjective responses recorded every 5 min, including thermal comfort, thermal sensation, thermal pleasure, and fatigue scale vote. This study found that, compared with the sunshine pathway, the tree-shaded pathway not only optimized people’s outdoor thermal comfort and thermal pleasure, but also improved their fatigue scale vote experience. Some evidence showed that people’s subjective response to the outdoor thermal environment might be influenced by physical factors (temperature, velocity, humidity, radiation, etc.) and may also be influenced by the surrounding landscape view (water, square, lawn, tree, etc.). The first piece of evidence is that, during the first 10 min, people’s thermal sensation in the sunshine pathway group was high, but they kept voting for high thermal comfort, which may be due to the influence of the waterfront view on people’s subjective response to thermal comfort. The second piece of evidence shows that people’s overall thermal sensation was calculated by their local thermal sensation, looking at former research, with the voting results very different to the calculated results, which could be attributed to the influence of diversity landscape elements on people’s subjective response to thermal sensation. Based on these results, some suggestions for the leisure pathway design along Stalin Park of Songhua River in Harbin, China, were given. The shaded device of the sunshine pathway should be designed in 15-min-walk intervals and accessible ways to the tree-shaded pathway should be added. The other facilities should be designed with 30 min walking distance on the tree-shaded pathway and 20 min walking distance to the sunshine pathway. Diversified landscapes should be designed for both the tree-shaded pathway and sunshine pathway, which could improve people’s outdoor thermal comfort and the general subjective response to the environment. It is worth noting that the sample size of this study was small (6), and the participants were all homogenous young people (age, height, weight); thus, this study could be considered a preliminary work and the results and applicability have limitations.