... thoughts : Project Cool Singapore

Airconditioning. A blessing for most in the hot weather that is Singapore. People today, shuttle not from tree shade to tree shade, but from airconditioned lobby to airconditioned lobby. Tropical weather apparently, is just too hot and humid for anyone to bear these days. But is it?

I'm old enough to remember a time when airconditioning was the exception, rather than the rule. We had big airy buildings and large shady trees to dissipate the sun's heat. I don't remember the air being quite so warm and humid either. Have temperatures risen in Singapore over the last couple of decades? I seriously think so. Airconditioning, ironically enough, is to blame. The amount of excess heat pouring out into backalleys and spewing into service corridors is simply horrendous. I remember a time when blankets were a must in the early mornings and one would shiver while waiting for the school bus in the pre-dawn.  There was a time when even in the midday sun, standing under a shady tree was all that was required to keep cool. Today, nowhere outside of an enclosed airconditioned space is even remotely comfortable.

What can we do as Architects, Engineers and City Planners? I for one, see a need for corrective action on a societal scale. Our skyscrapers and new HDB estates are increasingly inching higher. We should be tapping into this well of cooler air high above us. There is a gradual
temperature gradient from the hot ground air decreasing as you go upwards, to temperatures as chilly as 10 to 20 degrees just a few hundred metres above us. Anyone who's been in a plane and watched the outside temperature indicator rise as the plane circles to land, will realise that there's a natural temperate climate (natural airconditioning if you will), just above our heads!

There are a few ways we can help lower temperatures at ground level, some of which are already being done, and literally cool Singapore.

1. We can forego the full glass facades of colder climates and return to more practical tropical architecture by minimising glass surface areas in direct exposure to sunlight, and create large shaded canopied areas and open verandas like the houses of old.

2. We could plan for closed airwells to shunt all airconditioning exhausts upwards and away from our streets as well as heat conductors that conduct waste heat upwards to be expelled using cooling fins place at the tops of buildings in the cooler stratas of air.

3. We could put into our city planning, a requirement for future skyscrapers to have active mechanical systems which take in air from the top of the building, to discharge at lower levels.

4. We
could turn off unnecessary lighting systems during the night so as not to continually heat up the environment and to allow the night air to cool.  The major side benefit to this would even be a return to the spendour of seeing stars at night!

5. We could build into our city planning a macro view of city skyline profiles and modify the shapes of buildings so as to concertedly channel the cooler winds from the upper levels, forcing them downward to blow through our streets and minimise still air pockets.

6. We can increase the number of leafy trees within the city area to create not only more shade, but also to renew the air through the tree's natural respiratory processes.

7. We can build more fountains. Not only will it cool the air, it will also give Singapore more character and help beautify the cityscape.

8. We can also of course, simply turn off our airconditioners.