Extreme heat: hot cities adapting to a hotter world

This report presents the main discussions and outcomes from The Extreme Heat: Hot Cities-Adapting to a Hotter World symposium organised by the Design for Risk & Reconstruction Committee (DfRR) in November 2015. The symposium brought together a group of speakers representing the broadest cross-section of professions involved in climate change to highlight both the short- and long-term impacts of extreme heat and the risks of not taking action.

The urban heat island effect exacerbates global-scale rises in temperature, and local heat waves are increasing in both severity and frequency. Heat waves have become an early and critical front in the struggle against deleterious climate-change effects, particularly in urban hardscape environments.

Architects, planners, engineers, public officials, scientists, scholars, and the business sector are accordingly developing strategies that pursue the nonexclusive aims of climate adaptation and mitigation in urban settings. Together, these endeavors constitute a distinct domain of knowledge and practice: urban heat management. This report presents some of these experiences and strategies, suggesting that The built environment may benefit enormously by converting one of its deadliest hazards, heat, into an invaluable asset.