Everyone can think of a hot part of town where the sun shines brighter and there's no shade.
There reason usually given is there's no budget, or room, for shade.
Could heat mitigation and cooling be integrated further into planning and development? Advocates think so.
Darwin Living Lab's Stephen Cook helps organisations achieve cooler environments and buildings, such as at the 1970s Royal Darwin Hospital, and wants to see development better integrate heat mitigation.
"Whether it is greening, providing a little strip of trees so that people are shaded as they move between car parks and buildings, having that type of lens put over all future development in Darwin would be really a great outcome to moving towards more climate-adapted cities," he said.
"We know it's hot now, but it's going to get hotter in the future."
'Minimalist has got to go'
Horticulturalist Emily Hinds said the way suburbs were built in the tropics needed a rethink.
"A lot of the spaces and suburbs have got it wrong," she said.
"You need those escape spaces for our minds, just to help enhance coolness, and also the importance of habitat for all the local fauna that has got nowhere else to go.
"New suburbs definitely need to embrace trees and green spaces.
"That thermal heat load when you've got concrete pathways and concrete houses, and you've got rock mulches, and very minimalist gardens, which were a bit of a rage a few years ago, I think they just got it all wrong up here.
"This minimalist look has got to go."
'Cooling effect'
Ms Hinds cited Darwin's older suburbs of Ludmilla, Parap and Nightcliff as having established street trees and gardens.
"The places where we've got really old trees and jungle gardens, they're cool, they're leafy, they just give a really cooling effect to the mind and in reality, too," she said.
"When you're developing a new suburb, or you're planning a new house, you really need to think about trees, not huge trees, but trees have to be part of that garden to keep it shaded and cool."
'Designing better'
Urban Development Institute of Australia NT chief executive Catriona Tatam said new clauses in the planning scheme were moving with the times.
"The term is 'designing better,'" she said.
CBD commercial precincts must now provide 10 per cent landscaping, and car parking can be reduced if vertical greening is incorporated.
There are new rules for car park shading and landscaping.
"It's reducing the heat of on-ground car parking," Ms Tatam said.
"Those are the kinds of initiatives that do take us closer to putting in these heat mitigation strategies."
Set parameters
Former NT government architect Lawrence Nield said planning should consider heat mitigation and cooling the same as it considers biting insects.
"Planning has to set parameters for heat mitigation in various areas throughout Darwin," he said.
"Unless we get it in planning, we can't ask these people to do the right thing with trees and fountains and water and breezes.
"If you assume that the plot of land was originally a piece of green space, or forest or wetlands, all that has to be replicated and strengthened in the new building."
Mr Nield compared Darwin to Singapore, but conceded only the former was cyclone-prone and any greening was more vulnerable and probably ill-advised.
"You need more soil and deeper planting," he said.
"There should be strategic heat interventions and there should be street cross-section level greening that is developed as part of the planning."
Getting tough on heat
A spokeswoman for the NT Infrastructure and Planning Department said cooling and heat mitigation was a consideration in area plans.
"The area plans for Central Darwin and Central Palmerston also recognise that in these areas there are hard surfaces contributing to the urban heat island effect and accordingly include high-level policies to support heat mitigation such as greening and building design," she said.
The NT Planning Scheme 2020 encourages heat mitigation through design, setbacks, orientation, and passive climate control measures.
Other recent measures allow for cross ventilation, recesses, more awnings, larger balconies, and landscaping to reduce car park sizes.
Public open space must cover at least 10 per cent of a new subdivision area and a developer must provide a masterplan.
"This must address a range of matters including a street tree framework; details of existing vegetation to be retained; and a proposed plant species list of new trees, shrubs and grass," the spokeswoman said.
