ABSTRACT

As climate change accelerates, the urban heat island becomes increasingly problematic. Peak summer temperatures within the city centre are often 3 degrees higher than the surrounding open countryside. Many facade-mounted air conditioning units simply dump hot air back into the street and only provide a very limited solution and at a considerable cost. As housing densities increase, the area of roof exposed to sunlight becomes smaller in relation to the number of people. When apartments are built at a density of 100 homes per hectare, the main exposure to sunlight must come from the vertical facades. Increasingly zero-fossil energy development factory has been asked to look at developments near city centres in places with boom economies, for instance Tongshan in Jiangsu and Dalian Eco-town. Clients have insisted on meeting their development brief with high-rise point blocks. The cost of extending the lifts another level easily compensates for the additional sales value created by the shared green open space.