A review by Isaac A. Meir * The last few years have yielded an ever-growing body of publications on climate change. From newspaper items describing the loss of 4 ft from the overall height of Everest due to the melting of ice caps, all the way to apocalyptic scenarios on the possible flooding of coastal cities, climate change has invaded into lives through the print and broadcast media, as well as through movies and books. Though in some cases it has become colder, in most places the climate is getting warmer in comparison with the last 150-odd years. Scientists have been arguing on the causes, some claiming we are in one of the natural fluctuations, yet many others blaming anthropogenic processes. An article recently published in Nature (432: 559-560, 610-614) describes a model that has been able to isolate anthropogenic from natural causes of recent global warming patterns. Among these are the greenhouse gas emissions coming from an increase in fossil fuel consumption, exacerbated in recent years by higher electricity demand for more air-conditioning and artificial lighting, more energy for industry needed to supply the demand for intensifying consumption, and more and cheaper fuel for more cars. Current research closely links physical planning and architectural design with energy consumption, 50% of which is devoured by buildings for their operation within man-induced microclimates. As such, our cities, buildings and lifestyle are responsible for a degraded environment which, in turn, adversely affects our quality of life and jeopardizes the ability of future generations to sustain a reasonable living standard. Yet, rather strangely, many of those among us involved directly in planning and design, tend to disregard this crucial discourse on climate change, global warming, sustainable development and future security. Architects and urbanists may have adopted the jargon, but have they really appropriated the new approach and design philosophy? How many of them have actually been exposed to the academic and scientific discourse published in journals such as Nature and Atmospheric Environment? It is exactly this gap between scientists and architects that this book bridges. It starts by describing the setting – the current state of affairs, climate change and its projections, the Kyoto Protocol and its implications, and the actual way in which each and every one of us will be affected by such issues. How did we ever reach a stage in which our very existence threatens our future? Has it always been so? Roaf paints in vivid colors the evolution of shelter and settlements and the adaptation of buildings and their use to the natural environment and its constraints. Nomadic lifestyle allowed traditional societies in drylands to adapt to seasonal changes by changing their environment - moving between summer and winter pastures. Sedentary populations employed a similar strategy which took the form of intramural migration, i.e. moving around different parts of the building to achieve maximum comfort during different parts of the day and the year. However, this adaptation, stemming from an understanding of and reaction to natural constraints and traditional technology potential, has been disrupted by the development of technical solutions in the last two centuries, based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. These have enabled us to stretch our habitats to the extremes, settling both the coldest and hottest parts of the globe. Our technologically enabled versatility has come with a price tag whose value we may have to reassess. By changing the immediate environment of our buildings and cities we have created a higher dependence on artificial means of control. In the chapter entitled “Safe and Warm”, Fergus Nicol, an authority on thermal comfort, describes the differences between free-running buildings and those artificially conditioned, and the implications of energy limitations and global warming on these, their users, and the latter’s health. Morbidity and mortality have been proven to be dependent on physical planning. The extreme heat wave of the summer of 2003 demonstrated the vulnerability of European and other big urban centers, and the limited ability of industrialized countries to sustain the ever growing spending of energy and resources inherent in our lifestyles. Having established the facts on global warming, Sue Roaf spreads before the reader the possible scenarios. These tend to be rather unattractive, to say the least. France sustained some 15,000 casualties in one single freak event in the summer of 2003. Yet such extreme weather events are becoming ever more common in recent years, with floods, droughts, tornados, bush and forest fires, heat and cold waves causing havoc in developed and developing world alike. These have had a great economic impact on industrialized countries. Insurance companies are already on the defensive, and the day is coming that buildings constructed on floodplains will be uninsurable. A new planning team concept is evolving which includes an insurance expert as part of the original decision making outfit. But what will eventually happen to buildings constructed on brownfields, affected by poisonous materials percolating upwards during floods? Or to agricultural areas where chemical residues are brought to the surface because of flooding? Or to structural damage of buildings inflicted by subsidence as soils dry during droughts? And how will the real estate business be affected when significant areas will be uninsurable? Whereas Nicol discusses the long-run implications of climate change and poorly constructed buildings, among them issues of mold, higher morbidity among the elderly and babies, humidity and water penetration of the building envelope, and fuel poverty, David Crichton, an insurance expert, who has been advising private and public sector alike, clearly lays out the economic implications. There still are countries in the developed world where the government has no schemes to compensate individual citizens for natural disasters. The insurance industry is the biggest industry in the world - three times the size of the energy industry! – and, being an unavoidably central player in the real estate market, but also dealing with health and life insurance, its involvement in the climate change discourse and contingency planning may mean that it will be making decisions where architects, planners and decision-makers are failing to do so. If damage in the affluent and industrialized countries can be somehow contained and dealt with, in the poorer developing countries climate change will have extreme consequences, with loss of life as the primary outcome. Droughts and floods are already affecting crops, spreading famine and causing vast numbers of people to migrate in search of water and food. Epidemics spread in refugee camps, and are exacerbated by higher temperatures, poorer health, unclean or contaminated water sources and congestion of towns and shantytowns. Warming of traditionally temperate and cool areas is changing the livelihoods of people, but is also driving out indigenous species, and attracting pests and animals from other adjacent ecological niches. Malaria and cholera, chicken flu and SARS will become more widespread as climate changes push more people into tightly packed, poorly sanitized environments. A Pentagon report on possible future scenarios recently leaked to the press outlines not only the global warming induced uncontrolled influx of refugees into the more affluent countries, but also fuel and water wars, the beginning of which we are already witnessing. What is to be done, then, to slow this destructive process and maybe even revert its course? Why is this book relevant to architects and planners? And why is an architect the right person to write it? Well, if buildings are responsible for 50% of the energy consumed, if our cities are creating within them microclimatic conditions which are inferior to those in open country nearby (the urban heat island effect), if the design and planning of cities is responsible for the intensity patterns of transportation and the subsequent gas emissions, then indeed planners and architects should already be involved in deep soul-searching. Yet they shouldn’t be alone. It is politicians and decision makers, policy planners and marketing experts, and each and every one of us that should be reading this book to understand the implications of our actions and practices. The book sets a blueprint for the upgrade of existing buildings and cities, as well as for the planning and design of new ones. Tall buildings should be re-assessed vis-à-vis the new constraints, among them the pressure they put on environment and infrastructure, but not least vis-à-vis security and safety considerations. All projects should be evaluated pre and post construction and occupancy so that mistakes can be corrected, and fine-tuning achieved. As for the authors, they are experts in their respective fields. Sue Roaf is among the better qualified professionals and academics to be writing such a book. She draws not only from a broad body of knowledge, but also from her hands-on experience in the arid zones of the Middle East, among them Iran and Iraq, where she investigated vernacular architecture and technologies, participated in archaeological excavations, and shared the life of nomads. An architect responsible for the design and construction of the first ecological house in Oxford, educator involved for years in energy efficient building research, consultant to different bodies, and policy maker serving on the Oxford Council, and with three additional books on sustainable design on her record in the last five years, Roaf has the multifaceted experience needed to be able to put together such a book. Written in a simple – yet far from simplistic – manner, this book is more comprehensive than any other that has been written so far. Specific topics are explained and expanded in boxes to allow different levels of reading without disrupting the continuity of text. Graphics are clear and easily understood. Sources include a broad range of research material, academic publications, daily news items, and numerous web sites. Should we be bracing ourselves for a grim future? Indeed we should, and this book lays out a comprehensive set of the reasons as well as a rough blueprint on “how-to”. For those of us who are concerned with the design of buildings and cities, sustainable planning and environmental issues, but also those of us who plan to be around for a few more years, as well as those of us concerned about the future of our children, Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change is mandatory reading. * The reviewer is architect, town planner and archaeologist, and associate professor at the Desert Architecture & Urban Planning Unit, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
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THE HEAT IS ON
S. Roaf, D. Crichton, F. Nicol (2005) Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change – A 21st Century Survival Guide. Architectural Press: Amsterdam etc. ISBN 0750659114, 384 p, paperback, £28.50.