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By our very nature, we humans are adaptable creatures. Having learnt to use tools millennia ago, we have developed the ability to actively shape and mould the environment around us to better suit our needs.
Nowhere has this been better realised than in the places that we choose to call home. Housing design across the world ranges from well insulated, wood-fired cabins in Scandinavia to more light and airy housing found in tropical climes, and our ability to thrive across such broad geographical regions is based on architecture that keeps the environment at bay.
Essentially, every environment demands unique solutions. This kind of relationship now looks to be upended by manmade climate change. Anyone with even the most fleeting interest in environmental matters will be aware that the world is warming at an unprecedented rate, invariably caused by emissions from human industry.
Surface temperatures are rising, spring arrives earlier each year, and the ocean is set to boil. Evidence is mounting that we have surpassed the 1.5°C temperature increase threshold as laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement – beyond this, it is anticipated that we shall see more and more extreme weather.
The effects of this are apparent to anyone willing to look. In just the past few months, we have witnessed several supposedly once-in-a-generation climatic events taking place, altering how we see the depth of the crisis. Wildfires raged across California, Korea and Japan, causing unprecedented damage and loss of life, while lethal flooding killed more than 200 people in Spain at the end of last year – these are just a couple of examples of what meteorologists are now recognising as the new normal.
We are seeing growing disconnects between the architectural specifications of the buildings we inhabit and the environments they are in. This will itself start to threaten the health and wellbeing of their occupants, as we become more exposed to meteorological conditions around us.
Terms like ‘global warming’ and ‘global heating’ can be somewhat misleading in the climate debate. While the challenges associated with the changing weather are ostensibly related to the planet getting hotter, these terms do not encapsulate the nuance of how the climate will change.
As the climate warms, weather is anticipated to (and already has) become more erratic and intense in ways that do not pertain exclusively to heat. In the UK, the Met Office estimates that climate change alone has contributed to a 15% increase in autumn rainfall, driving more intense storms and flooding. Conversely, it expects that climate change will also lead to a 10%-15% reduction in water availability during the summer months, parching agricultural land and causing drought.
With weather conditions thus beginning to fluctuate between two much greater extremes, and our built environment increasingly mismatched with these conditions, the impacts on our health are likely to be equally extreme.
Take heatwaves and overheating as a representative example. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), heat and heat stress is the leading cause of weather-related deaths around the world. And, with the number of people subject to extremes of heat rising at an exponential rate, this phenomenon is one that is only set to grow.
Yet many people question how heat in itself can contribute to illness and death, as its effects are both extensive and varied. Physiologically, prolonged periods of high heat contribute to cumulative stress on the body, often exacerbating underlying health conditions and introducing an array of new ones. Heat stress and heat stroke are the two greatest impacts on our health during periods of extreme heat; they directly affect our safety by markedly increasing the demands placed on our hearts and circulation. Particularly for people with underlying health conditions – often those who are very old or overweight – this greater cardiovascular stress can contribute to arrhythmias, heart attacks and strokes, all of which are leading causes of death during heatwaves.
But it is important to remember that climate-change-driven climatic events can have a profound impact even if they are not a matter of life and death – the way we experience these events is varied, ranging from sleep deprivation to impaired mental health to reduced economic productivity. Simple thermal comfort is the manner in which most of us will be affected by high heat.
In the UK alone, it is estimated that the number of ‘hot days’ (defined as surpassing 28°C) has more than doubled and the number of ‘very hot days’ (over 30°C) has more than tripled since the 20th century. This culminated in the record-breaking 2022 heatwaves, where the UK hit 40°C for the first time in recorded history, claiming almost 3,000 lives over the course of the summer.
A warmer and more meteorologically erratic world necessitates a change in thinking as to how we design and build the world around us. The extent of the challenge here cannot be overstated – adaptive measures are a crucial tool in our repertoire to safeguard our populations against climate change, alongside more mitigative approaches. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that, by 2050, adaptive measures will cost us up to $500bn annually.
However, with this also comes an opportunity. As things stand, our infrastructure and housing stock in the UK is not suitably adapted to the effects of climate change. During the 2022 heatwaves, we saw care homes roast, critical health infrastructure fail, and the temperatures in our homes soar, particularly in more deprived areas, putting innumerable people at risk. We therefore see an opportunity whereby the need to enhance the built environment can be used to create infrastructure that improves the health and wellbeing of the population to a maximal extent.
Take, for example, the concept of green walls and roofs. Despite having fallen out of favour following the Grenfell tragedy, they are still commonly installed in urban areas, including at the One Hyde Park complex in London, to combat the growing biodiversity crisis. This form of urban greening can have a multitude of secondary health and wellbeing benefits for residents.
Key benefits here include an improvement in local air quality, a reduction in local ambient temperature, and benefits to mental health through the provision of more green spaces, shown to promote wellbeing. One study was able to demonstrate that the installation of such structures can reduce airborne particulate matter by up to 43% in some areas, protecting residents against respiratory illness.
This is where there needs to be a radical shift in our thinking. Current climate adaptive measures often act like sticking plasters, targeted at individual forms of extreme weather. If a changing climate does demand that we rethink the built environment, this should be seen as an opportunity to design spaces that create greater resilience to a host of different weather conditions, in a manner that centres holistically on human health and wellbeing.
Image credit: Shutterstock
Oliver Longstaff is editor of Shade the UK
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