Designing Passive Cooling Interventions for Precarious Housing and Extreme Heat

We are working to document, co-produce, and mobilize knowledge that strengthens the testing and implementation of different design and policy interventions aimed at reducing the impacts from the interactions between heat and the built environment on health and wellbeing.

Sources of Heat and Household Thermal Comfort. Illustration by Brianna Bartelt

The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat and heat waves has serious ramifications for health globally, and across low, middle and high-middle-income countries. Residents, especially in precarious neighborhoods and homes, can face severe health risks due to extreme indoor heat, with limited access to effective building adaptation and cooling strategies. At the same time, residents, housing advocacy groups, municipal and government agencies, and local builders often seek guidance to support assisted-self-help housing with effective passive cooling strategies.

Our Activities Focus on Four Core Focus Areas:

• Participatory Planning and Community-Based Research; Evidence-Based Policy and Programs for Combating Housing and Health Inequality
• Social and Built Environment Connections with Health and Health Inequalities
• Passive Cooling Technologies; Building Modeling and Simulation
• Construction Instructions, Visualization, and Guidelines for Implementation

Taubman College faculty from both architecture and urban and regional planning work on research and implementation approaches that are highly interdisciplinary, integrative, and with faculty in public health, the social sciences, civil and environmental engineering, social work, and medicine. Faculty work in partnership with local communities, governments, research experts, technical advisory bodies, and NGOs across multiple regions to collect data about building structures, policy, health indicators, climate trajectories, and community goals and experiences.

Participatory Action Research

Faculty and partners then use these data to assess the effectiveness of design approaches, public policies, thermal comfort, health outcomes, building types, building materials, and the feasibility, viability, and desirability of different adaptation strategies. In many cases, policy analysis, building simulations, current and future climate trends, participatory design outcomes, and constructions and implementation guidelines are brought together to help identify and prioritize interventions that can have significant impacts on the community and individual wellbeing, health, and self-efficacy.

Working Together As Multidisciplinary Experts, Faculty, and Student Researchers, We Partner With Each Other, Our Partners, and Our Supporters To:

• assess context and needs,
• secure resources and funding to support the work,
• develop our teams,
• collect information, measurements, and data,
• develop and analyze results of building models and simulations,
• build capacity and understanding with our partners around the concepts and knowledges needed for implementation,
• evaluate and prioritize results and implementation strategies with communities and decision makers,
• develop and visualize guidelines for implementation,
• work with our partners to design and implement interventions,
• evaluate and compare the results of the interventions to asses their impacts,
• share, communicate, and mobilize insights, practices, and procedures.

Working with global research partners, Taubman College faculty mobilize these insights towards larger-scale trials, policy, and for community use and adoption. Many of these evidence-based approaches provide governments, housing advocates, residents, and organizations with actionable insights for improving building interventions globally.