Deconstructing the air-conditioned nation

SINGAPORE-BASED architect Ling Hao grew up in a stilted compound house in Sarawak, Malaysia. Keeping a cool home back then meant using building features like ventilation panels at the top of windows to maintain a flow of air through the space.

“The wind always pervades with the monsoons,” said Ling, 54. “If you stand, the wind just (goes) around you, but if you build something, you can actually catch the wind or block the wind.”

Ling and a camp of architects and building consultants are mounting a modest revolution against Singapore’s dominant approach to cooling. These quiet rebels argue that instead of building for air-conditioning and seeking better cooling technologies, we should simply build spaces that can “catch the wind” in Singapore’s tropical environment. Passive cooling, as they call it.