![]() Paris officials have no problem with green roofs on new buildings - in fact, the city recently passed a law requiring them (or solar panels) on all new commercial structures above a certain size. “People can grow food and get protection from the heat at the same time,” said Olivier Faber, one of the cofounders of the company. In 2020, three young Parisians founded a company called Roofscapes to build what amounts to wooden platforms that rest on load-bearing walls and sit atop the zinc roofs, which could become rooftop terraces. But since the zinc roofs in Paris are already light‑colored, the impact would be more modest. Researchers at Australia’s University of New South Wales determined that white roofs reduced indoor temperatures by up to 7 degrees F (4 degrees C). White roofs can be remarkably effective in sunny climates. Light colors increase the albedo, or reflectivity, of buildings, deflecting sunlight and causing less heat to be absorbed. What’s to be done? Adding insulation under the zinc would be very expensive. And because top‑floor garrets were not insulated, that heat is transferred directly into the rooms below. But those roofs are, in the 21 st century, deadly - heating up to 194 degrees F (90 degrees C) on a summer day. In India, they are experimenting with green roofs, which absorb heat and create space to grow food.īut perhaps nowhere in the world do the challenges, as well as the opportunities, loom larger than in Paris, where nearly 80 percent of the buildings have zinc roofs - an affordable, corrosion-resistant and virtually inflammable innovation of the 19 th century. In Los Angeles, public works crews are painting streets white to increase reflectivity. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, officials are creating urban gardens, improving access to clean water, and erecting plexiglass awnings over outdoor markets. In Seville, Spain, city planners are using the technology of ancient underground waterways to provide cooling for the city without depending on air‑conditioning. In New York City, workers and volunteers have planted over a million trees to add shade and clean the air. In many cities, this urban remodeling project is already underway. ![]() Do you tear them down and rebuild? Do you retrofit? How do you create more green space in already crowded inner cities? The vast majority of existing buildings are ill‑suited for the extreme climate of the 21st century: poorly insulated, poorly sited, dependent on air-conditioning to keep them habitable. The second, and more difficult, challenge is figuring out what to do with existing buildings and cityscapes. That means more green space, more trees, more water, more shade, more thermally intelligent urban design. New buildings need to be not only efficient and built of sustainable materials, but also safe for people during increasingly intense heat waves. Cars need to be replaced with bikes and public transit. First, as cities grow, how do you ensure that they grow in a heat‑smart way? Another 50 years of suburban sprawl is not the answer. Or, if that is too much, at least making it a city that is not a death trap for its citizens.įor cities, the challenge of thriving on a superheated planet is twofold. Making a city that was not designed for extreme heat into a city that is livable during extreme heat is the great urban engineering project of our time. Southwest, Southern Europe, China, India, and elsewhere. That is being brought home this month, as Earth has seen its hottest days on record, and deadly heat waves have hit the U.S. Many of the victims lived alone, in top‑floor garrets or attic apartments, where the heat built up beneath zinc roofs and literally cooked people as if they were in an oven.īut now, like everything else, these cities have to change. Nearly a thousand lived in central Paris. In less than two weeks, 15,000 people in France died as a direct result of the heat wave. A week or so into the heat wave, city officials began running out of places to store bodies. Hospital emergency rooms started to fill up. ![]() It took a few days for the full scope of the tragedy to reveal itself. For nine days in August, the daytime temperature was above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), sometimes spiking up to 104 degrees F (40 degrees C). In the summer of 2003, Parisians who remained in the city were hit with something they were not accustomed to: a heat wave. People who stick around during August are often older or have jobs that require them to stay and keep the city functioning. ![]() Think of it as an old‑fashioned adaptation to heat. Paris virtually shuts down as the temperature drifts around in the seventies, and people go to the beach or the mountains to cool off and relax. There’s a long tradition in France of taking August off for holiday. ![]()
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