2023-08-14 20:31:39
This year again, heat waves made the headlines and several world temperature records were broken. In such a context, the role of trees and greenery in limiting heat in the city is often underlined. And in this area, the city of Singapore is at the forefront.
Singapore has been multiplying projects for several years to limit the effects of urban heat and those of global warming. Parks, gardens, green and ecological buildings: the city-state is today a model.
However, the island is one of the most urbanized areas in the world. But everywhere, concrete and skyscrapers rub shoulders with greenery. It is thus nicknamed the “garden city” of Southeast Asia.
And the result is there: in this area of the world with a tropical climate, Singapore records an average temperature of 28 degrees all year round.
A smart building
These green spaces, on the ground but also directly on the buildings, also make it possible to reduce the effects of heat without increasing energy expenditure.
In some hotels, customers can even stroll through gardens that run all around the building… on the fifth floor.
These gardens and other green terraces protect the buildings from the sun. Combined with openings that allow air to circulate naturally through the floors, this type of architecture can lower the interior temperature by two to three degrees.
Science and awareness
Since 2006, Singapore has been mobilizing scientists, urban planners and architects to design a city capable of resisting the effects of climate change.
For Schirin Taraz, a German architect who has been living in Singapore for 20 years, there is an urgent need to see these new housing models emerge. “We cannot continue to act as if nothing had happened and build our cities and our environment in the same way as we have done in the last centuries”, she declares Monday in the 7:30 p.m. “We now have to house billions of people and this is a new challenge that requires new solutions.”
In its ambitious program, Singapore plans, by 2030, to have 80% of “green” buildings, that is to say buildings with low energy consumption.
TV report: Antoine Védeilhé
Adaptation web: yup
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