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Can Our Cities Survive the Next Heat Wave? (Part 2)

  • Jul 28
  • 8 min read

This article is the second in GBCE’s August series on heat waves and the built environment. Over the coming weeks, we will examine how extreme heat is reshaping cities, buildings, infrastructure, and public health, and what this means for developers, asset owners, policymakers, and investors.


Series overview


Extreme heat is no longer an occasional weather event. It is becoming a structural climate risk for cities, infrastructure, public health systems, and real estate markets. Recent heat waves across Europe, South Asia, and North America have shown that the challenge is not only rising temperatures, but also the ability of different regions to cope with them.


Climate scientists expect heat waves to become more frequent, longer, and more intense as global temperatures rise. Yet exposure and preparedness vary widely. Many cities in South Asia and Southeast Asia face chronic heat combined with high humidity, where outdoor work, transport, and access to cooling become critical concerns. In contrast, parts of Europe and Canada have historically been designed for colder climates; many homes, schools, and healthcare facilities were not built to withstand prolonged extreme heat, leading to increased health risks during recent summer events.


The consequences extend far beyond discomfort. Extreme heat is associated with higher mortality, pressure on hospitals, reduced labour productivity, disruptions to transport and energy systems, and rising operating costs for buildings and cities. Urban areas are particularly vulnerable because dense construction, limited vegetation, and heat-absorbing materials create urban heat island effects that can keep neighbourhoods significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas.


For the building sector, the response cannot be limited to installing larger air-conditioning systems. While cooling remains essential, relying on mechanical cooling alone increases electricity demand, strains power networks, and can worsen emissions if the energy supply is not decarbonised. Heat resilience must be addressed at multiple scales: building design, neighbourhood planning, urban greening, water management, and public infrastructure. Financial instruments such as green bonds, resilience funds, climate-adaptation financing, and sustainability-linked lending are also becoming important tools to help cities and developers invest in long-term heat adaptation measures.


This article is part of a series examining why heat waves are intensifying, how their impacts differ across regions, and what designers, developers, and policymakers can do to create healthier and more resilient living environments.



Why Buildings Are Central to the Heat Challenge

Most people experience extreme heat through the buildings and neighbourhoods they occupy. During a heat wave, indoor temperatures can remain dangerously high for hours or even days, particularly in buildings with poor insulation, inadequate shading, limited ventilation, or heat-absorbing roofs and façades.


In many cities, the problem is amplified by the urban heat island effect. Dense construction, asphalt surfaces, dark materials, and a lack of trees or open green space cause urban areas to absorb and retain heat during the day and release it slowly at night. As a result, some neighbourhoods can remain several degrees warmer than surrounding rural areas, reducing the body’s ability to recover from daytime heat exposure.


Buildings also determine who is most vulnerable. Older adults, young children, hospital patients, and lower-income households are often at greater risk because they may spend more time indoors, have limited access to cooling, or live in buildings that were not designed for extreme heat. This is why heat resilience is not only an energy issue; it is also a public health and social equity issue.


The challenge for developers, designers, and city authorities is therefore not simply how to provide more cooling, but how to reduce heat exposure in the first place through better building design, shaded public spaces, urban greening, and climate-responsive infrastructure.


Rising temperatures are driving higher cooling demand globally, but the reasons differ by region.

In parts of South and Southeast Asia, growing urban populations, expanding access to cooling, and high humidity are increasing demand. In Europe, the challenge is different: many existing buildings were designed for temperate climates and have limited protection against prolonged extreme heat.


In countries such as France, a substantial portion of the housing stock is located in historic or protected buildings, where façade modifications, external shading devices, and conventional air-conditioning installations may be restricted or require special approval. These constraints make passive cooling measures, careful retrofitting, and neighbourhood-scale heat mitigation strategies particularly important.



The challenge for developers is therefore not only how to provide cooling, but how to reduce the amount of cooling buildings require.



Designing Out Heat: The Principles of Climate-Responsive Buildings

Long before air conditioning became widespread, buildings in hot climates were designed to work with local environmental conditions rather than against them. This approach, known as bioclimatic architecture, uses the sun, wind, vegetation, thermal mass, and building orientation to maintain more comfortable indoor conditions while reducing the need for mechanical cooling.


Traditional courtyard houses in the Middle East, shaded streets in Mediterranean towns, and tropical vernacular architecture across Southeast Asia all apply bioclimatic principles. Although the forms differ, the objective is the same: minimise heat gain, promote natural cooling, and create livable environments adapted to the local climate.


In a hotter future, these principles are becoming relevant again, not as a return to traditional architecture, but as the foundation of modern heat-resilient design. The most effective buildings combine passive and active strategies, reducing heat exposure first and then using efficient mechanical systems only where necessary. This integrated approach can improve occupant comfort, reduce energy demand, and increase resilience during heat waves or power disruptions.


Key principles of climate-responsive design


1. Building orientation and solar control

A building’s shape and orientation influence how much solar radiation it receives. Reducing exposure to intense east and west sun, combined with external shading systems, can significantly reduce heat entering buildings.

External shading devices such as overhangs, fins and louvres are particularly effective because they block solar radiation before it reaches glazing.


Example: Al Bahar Towers, Abu Dhabi The twin towers use a dynamic external shading system inspired by traditional mashrabiya screens. The façade opens and closes in response to solar exposure, reducing direct solar gain while maintaining daylight and outward views. The project demonstrates how solar control can be integrated into the architecture rather than added as an afterthought. 

Source: GlobalABC Passive Cooling Hub https://globalabc.org/passive-cooling-hub



2. High-performance envelopes

The building envelope acts as the first line of defence against heat. Insulation, glazing selection, façade materials and airtight construction influence how quickly heat transfers into indoor spaces.

Improving envelope performance can reduce cooling demand and improve occupant comfort.


Example: Powerhouse Brattørkaia, Trondheim, Norway Powerhouse Brattørkaia uses a highly insulated and airtight envelope, triple-glazed windows, and carefully designed façade shading to minimise heat loss in winter and limit unwanted solar gains in summer. The building is designed to produce more energy than it consumes over its operational life, while maintaining high levels of indoor comfort with very low heating and cooling demand.




3. Landscape and urban design

Heat resilience is not only about individual buildings. Surrounding landscapes, vegetation and public spaces influence local temperatures.

Trees, green areas and shaded spaces can reduce exposure to heat and improve outdoor comfort, particularly in dense urban areas.


Example: Benjakitti Forest Park, Bangkok, Thailand Benjakitti Forest Park is one of Bangkok’s largest urban greening projects and was designed to increase tree cover, restore wetland ecosystems and provide shaded public space in the city centre. The park helps mitigate the urban heat island effect by increasing evapotranspiration, reducing heat absorption from hard surfaces and creating cooler microclimates for pedestrians and cyclists. It also demonstrates how landscape design can deliver multiple benefits, including heat reduction, flood retention, biodiversity enhancement and improved public health. 

Source: worldbank.org 


4. Smart cooling systems

Passive strategies reduce cooling demand, but mechanical systems remain necessary for many buildings.

District cooling, efficient HVAC systems and energy monitoring can help improve performance at the building and neighbourhood scale.


Example: Marina Bay district cooling, Singapore The Marina Bay district cooling network supplies chilled water from a central plant to multiple buildings, allowing the system to operate more efficiently than individual building chillers. By aggregating cooling demand across the district, the network reduces peak electricity demand, improves operational efficiency, and frees up rooftop space that would otherwise be occupied by cooling equipment. 



Lessons developers can replicate

Orient buildings to work with prevailing winds. Arrange building massing, courtyards, and circulation spaces to capture prevailing breezes and promote cross-ventilation. This can reduce heat buildup in public and transitional areas and lower reliance on continuous air conditioning.


Use landscape as part of the cooling strategy. Integrate shaded courtyards, dense vegetation, and water-sensitive landscape features around buildings and pedestrian areas. These elements can help lower surrounding surface temperatures and create cooler microclimates that improve outdoor comfort.


Design the building and cooling systems together. Coordinate external shading, façade design, insulation, glazing, and ventilation strategies from the earliest design stages. Early integration allows mechanical systems to be sized more efficiently and can significantly reduce cooling demand.


Plan heat resilience at the campus or district scale.Treat outdoor spaces, pedestrian connections, drainage, and planting as part of a single environmental system. An integrated approach can improve thermal comfort, support stormwater management, and create more usable outdoor areas during periods of extreme heat.



What Developers Should Do Now

As climate conditions change, developers should consider four priorities:


1. Assess current and future climate conditions 

Buildings are long-term assets, so design decisions should be based on both current site conditions and future climate projections. Design teams should evaluate expected changes in temperature, heat-wave frequency, humidity, solar exposure, storms, floods, droughts and other climate variables over the building’s intended lifespan, rather than relying solely on historical weather data. This assessment should inform key decisions on site planning, orientation, envelope performance, cooling strategies, outdoor comfort, and landscape design from the earliest stages of the project. 


2. Prioritise passive strategies first

Building orientation, external shading, envelope performance, material selection, and landscape design should be considered first when addressing heat resilience. These passive measures can significantly reduce heat gain, improve thermal comfort, and lower cooling demand, reducing reliance on larger mechanical systems. 


3. Use modelling early and measure performance

Thermal and energy modelling allows project teams to evaluate building performance before construction and identify opportunities for improvement. A metric-driven approach enables different design alternatives, such as orientation, glazing ratios, shading strategies, envelope specifications, and ventilation options, to be tested and compared against measurable performance indicators, including cooling demand, peak indoor temperatures, energy use intensity, thermal comfort, and carbon emissions.


By quantifying the performance of each option, design teams can make evidence-based decisions early in the design process, when design changes are both more effective and less costly to implement. This approach helps ensure that selected strategies are driven by verified performance outcomes rather than assumptions or standard practice alone. 


4. Use certification frameworks as guiding principles

Standards such as LEED, EDGE, and TREES provide structured approaches for measuring energy performance, materials, water efficiency, and occupant wellbeing. When used as performance tools rather than compliance checklists, they can help project teams set measurable targets, evaluate design decisions, and document outcomes throughout design and construction. 


5. Monitor performance and create feedback loops

Design intent does not guarantee operational performance. Buildings should be supported by post-occupancy monitoring strategies, including energy and water tracking, indoor environmental quality measurements, and occupant feedback. Regular performance reviews help identify gaps between predicted and actual outcomes, optimise building operations, and improve maintenance strategies.


Creating these feedback loops also allows lessons learned from one project to inform future developments, strengthening long-term resilience and helping assets adapt to evolving climate conditions. 


Continue the Series



Sources

 
 
 

1 Comment

ali88 kiki88
ali88 kiki88
Aug 03

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