good design is the best defence against extreme heat

As extreme weather becomes more frequent, the way homes are designed has a direct impact on the health and wellbeing of the people who live in them. It's something we think about a great deal at KO&Co, and a recent article by researchers from Monash University brought the stakes into sharp focus.

The statistics from India and Indonesia are confronting. What the article makes clear is that in poorly designed homes, air conditioning alone is not a solution—and for many people, it isn't even an option. The researchers describe what is happening as a heat pandemic, exacerbated by poorly designed buildings.

Photographer: Katie Mathieson Photography

Those with the least choice are most at risk

Australia sits firmly in this conversation. Tenants in rental properties here are regularly experiencing indoor summer temperatures above 30°C, and we are in the middle of a housing crisis that places enormous pressure on the pace of construction. In that environment, there is a real risk that quality gets sacrificed to quantity. We believe that's a trade-off worth resisting.

This applies to every dwelling type—houses and apartments alike. But the impact is felt most acutely in affordable and social housing, where residents have the least ability to adapt, retrofit, or simply move on. These are the buildings where good passive design decisions matter most, and where they are most often missing.

The homes being built today will need to protect the people inside them for decades to come, through summers that are likely to be hotter than anything we've seen. The question of how many homes we build matters—but so does how well we build them.