At a seminar on building cooling strategies in the late 1990s, I vividly remember hearing that “in 30 years time, the climate of London will feel like Marseille’s today”. That warning stuck with me. Back then, it sounded both alarming – and oddly appealing.
Three decades on, it no longer feels theoretical. As a Londoner of Mediterranean origin, I’ve lived through the shift. When I co-wrote The Architecture of Natural Cooling, I drew not only on professional expertise but also on childhood memories of white walls, shady courtyards and shuttered windows. These ancient techniques – once suited to the Mediterranean – now hold lessons for modern Britain, where heatwaves are becoming the new normal.
One of the simplest and most effective ways to cool a building is to change its colour. White surfaces reflect sunlight rather than absorb it, and studies show that painting roofs white or adding some other type of reflective coating can reduce the internal temperatures by more than 1°C and sometimes more than 4°C. They can even lower the surrounding outdoor temperatures by up to 2°C.
