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That \u201cthird skin\u201d is starting to get tested. Weather is swinging harder than it used to, and lots of houses and offices simply weren\u2019t built for the kind of heatwaves and cold storms that are showing up more often. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a problem, because a building that can\u2019t keep you at a safe temperature isn\u2019t just uncomfortable. It can be dangerous.<\/p>\n
When buildings stop working<\/p>\n
Many homes and workplaces are not designed to withstand the extreme weather<\/a> fluctuations we will increasingly experience in a hotter future. <\/p>\n You can feel it in the way some places heat up fast and stay hot, even after the sun goes down. Or how a room turns icy the second a cold front hits.<\/p>\n The authors of the book Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes \u2013 Susan Roaf,\u00a0Fergus Nicol, and\u00a0Michael Humphreys \u2013 are direct in their assessment.<\/p>\n \u201cIn reality, many modern buildings, and particularly homes, are already failing in various ways. During extreme weather events, they overheat. During power outages, some buildings do not even remain habitable,\u201d they noted.<\/p>\n A power outage<\/a> during a heatwave or a winter storm isn\u2019t rare anymore. And when the lights go out, a lot of modern buildings don\u2019t just lose comfort. They lose basic safety.<\/p>\n The price of staying comfortable<\/p>\n \u201cEven many in the middle classes in developed economies are finding it increasingly hard to afford the energy needed to keep their homes thermally safe, let alone comfortable, even before the onset of the evermore extreme weather events we will all face in the future,\u201d wrote the authors.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not only about money. It\u2019s about choices people get forced into. Do you run the air conditioner all night and pay for it later, or sweat it out and hope you don\u2019t get sick? <\/p>\n This is where building design becomes personal. It shapes who gets to feel safe, who gets to rest, and who has to grit their teeth through the season.<\/p>\n Why modern design often makes it worse<\/p>\n A lot of today\u2019s design trends look nice in photos but behave badly in real weather. Some common issues in building design include overheating risks in single-sided flats with poor ventilation, and any buildings in dense cities that retain high temperatures day and night in hot weather.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the glass problem. Most modern homes have large open-plan spaces and big glass walls without curtains or shades. <\/p>\n These designs make it easy for heat to escape or enter quickly, causing the rooms to quickly get too hot or too cold, which can negatively affect the health and comfort of the people living there.<\/p>\n The book argues that we backed ourselves into this corner over time. <\/p>\n In the twentieth century, the authors explain, the Western world exported a very narrow definition of \u201cthermal comfort\u201d in building design, which saw lightweight, glass-walled air-conditioned buildings proliferate around the world, in which windows do not open.<\/p>\n Not only are these highly energy-intensive to run and will only become more so as climates become more extreme, but many also are super-polluters \u2013 major drivers of climate change.<\/p>\n So the same style of building that struggles in extreme weather can also make that extreme weather worse. That feedback loop is hard to ignore.<\/p>\n Rethinking how we design buildings<\/p>\n The authors argue that we need to stop treating machines as the only answer.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way we currently measure and design buildings for the climate is not working. It is leading us to a dead-end generation of unadaptable and thermally dangerous buildings that require so much energy to remain habitable, that only the very wealthiest will be able to afford to occupy them,\u201d they warned.<\/p>\n The researchers describe a crossroads in which one direction points to continuing to design buildings that are shut off from the climate around them in order to be conditioned by efficient machines. <\/p>\n \u201cThe other direction points to the seemingly revolutionary idea that we urgently need to reconnect indoor climates to those outside them to create buildings in which people are enabled to use local, natural, renewable energy<\/a> from sun, wind and planting to stay comfortable indoors for as much of the year as possible, free of cost to themselves and with minimal impacts on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201creconnect\u201d idea can sound strange if you grew up thinking comfort means sealing everything tight and blasting cooled air. But it\u2019s also how humans lived for a long time: buildings that worked with local weather instead of fighting it nonstop.<\/p>\n Making extreme climates habitable<\/p>\n The team points out that humanity has always managed to adapt to its surroundings across a huge variety of climates, made habitable in locally evolved buildings.<\/p>\n They argue that we now need to relearn from the wisdom of traditional builders around the world who design for already extreme climates.<\/p>\n The book pulls lessons from traditional yurts in Mongolia to the M\u0101ori philosophy on human well-being. <\/p>\n It points to Sweden, where community support can keep people safer in harsh conditions, and to architects in South East Asia who build comfort using local and natural resources instead of depending fully on constant air conditioning.<\/p>\n That shift also changes who we listen to. Instead of assuming \u201cWestern\u201d design is the default, the book argues that real expertise already exists in places that have dealt with heat, humidity, and weather swings for generations.<\/p>\n What the new builders are doing differently<\/p>\n Susan Roaf, professor of architectural engineering at Heriot Watt University, calls for a reset.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need radical new thinking. We need completely new thinking that enables buildings to run on local energy, using natural ventilation<\/a>, solar gain in winter, and time cooling in summer, so profoundly reducing energy use in, and carbon emissions from buildings. More efficient machines are not the solution,\u201d said Professor Roaf.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s really exciting is the new generation of pioneering architects who design beautiful, comfortable, naturally-ventilated buildings that keep people cool.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time we in the North start listening to others. It\u2019s time for architects in South East Asia, for instance, who are creating wonderful buildings, to export their wisdom back to teach the West how to design responsible climate-friendly homes and workplaces.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the message: we need hybrid or mixed-mode buildings that can be run for as much of the year as possible on local, free, natural energy, and only heated or cooled when necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201chybrid\u201d approach lines up with what many engineers now push for in practice. Buildings that stay stable through smart orientation, shading, insulation, airflow, and thermal mass, while using mechanical heating or cooling<\/a> as backup instead of the main plan.<\/p>\n The full study was published in the journal Adaptive Thermal Comfort<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most of us don\u2019t see buildings as life-support systems. But that\u2019s exactly what they are. 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