How to build homes that can survive extreme heat

At the same time, as the AC became ubiquitous in America, “many architects stopped designing buildings for their specific context,” said Sonia Chao, associate dean of architecture at the University of Miami and author of Calibrating Coastal Resilience. “What we have today are buildings in South Florida that look a lot like the buildings being built in California or Arizona,” or more temperate climates, when in fact “we really shouldn’t be building in the same ways.”

Most homes in South Florida once sat atop crawl spaces that protected them against floodwaters and let in a breeze to naturally cool the rooms above, said Chao. But many local buildings are now built directly atop concrete, meaning that “as the earth itself gets warmer,” the homes above absorb the heat too.

Of course, if you blast your AC high enough, you probably won’t feel it. And, for decades, that gave American developers tacit permission to pare down the elements like thick masonry, high ceilings, shaded porches, and window shutters that once naturally kept us cool in favor of cheap drywall and easier-to-construct boxy floor plans that helped them cram sprawling tracts of readymade starter homes across suddenly bustling desert cities such as Phoenix and Albuquerque. They cleared trees and poured asphalt, churning out decades’ worth of leaky, heat-absorbent neighborhoods. But it didn’t matter — so long as the AC kept running.