Designing for heat: passive cooling in dense cities

Two of our buildings, one a tower in Singapore and one a house in Lisbon, have been monitored continuously since they opened. This is what the data taught us about keeping people cool without machines.

First, shade beats glass. Meridian's perforated screen cut solar gain by 41 percent, but the real gain came from where the shade fell: on the floor plates nearest the west core, where the old building had needed the most cooling. Design the shade before the plan and the plan gets simpler.

Second, mass works when it can breathe. Kiln House's brick walls hold the night's cool until mid-afternoon, but only because the courtyard ventilates the house every evening. Thermal mass without ventilation is a storage heater.

Third, people adapt more than models allow. Occupants in both buildings tolerate higher temperatures than the standards predict when they control the windows and blinds themselves. Give people the controls and design for the range, not the setpoint.

We now run a shade study in the first week of every project, before the first plan is drawn. It has changed the way our buildings look, and we think for the better.