Insights

For generations, our homes have evolved in response to our changing needs. Climate change is demanding something new.

Our needs have never stood still, and neither have our homes. Climate change was thought of as an abstract problem, discussed through emissions targets and long-term projections. Heatwaves have changed this, they feel different because they are experienced personally, today. They lead to sleepless nights, bedrooms that never cool, parents trying to settle their children, and older people whose homes no longer feel safe.

During the June 2026 heatwave, overnight temperatures in parts of the UK remained above 23.5°C. This was more significant than hitting another weather record. It was that people could not cool down their homes, and as a result had poor recovery. Over multiple nights this led to hot, tired people who made mistakes and could not do their jobs as well. More worryingly, researchers found there were more than 2,700 excess deaths estimated in England and Wales during the May and June heatwaves.

That changes the questions we ask of the homes we design and manage.

It is no longer enough to ask whether a home is energy efficient. Increasingly, we must ask whether it continues to protect people’s health and wellbeing during periods of extreme weather. This moves the conversation beyond overheating, which is a useful technical concept helping designers assess risk and informing regulations such as Approved Document Part O. For the people living in our homes, the challenge is broader.

It is about heat resilience: the ability of homes, neighbourhoods and communities to protect health and wellbeing as temperatures rise.

We must shift the focus from buildings to people. Heat affects comfort, sleep, productivity and wellbeing. Perhaps the most important distinction is that exposure is not the same as vulnerability. We are all exposed to the same high temperatures, but for older people, young children and those with existing health conditions, the consequences can be far more serious. Our ability to adapt also varies. While some people can move between air-conditioned environments, many spend the day in homes that offer little respite from the heat.

Young adults living in compact urban apartments may experience some of the greatest exposure to high temperatures, particularly as more people work from home. Yet the greatest health risks remain concentrated among those least able to regulate their body temperature, such as babies and older people, or recover from prolonged periods of heat.

Recovery is the part of the conversation we often overlook.

Homes have traditionally relied on cooler nights to release the heat accumulated during the day, while people have relied on those same cooler conditions to sleep and recover. As heatwaves become longer and nights warmer, that opportunity is diminishing.

Heat becomes dangerous not simply because temperatures rise, but because prolonged periods of heat deny people the opportunity to recover.

The measure of a resilient home is therefore not simply how hot it becomes during the afternoon, but whether it enables the people living inside it to recover before the next day begins.

Designing and retrofitting heat resilient homes has been falsely presented as being in opposition to energy efficiency. This is not the case, nor does it suggest that older homes are inherently better than newer ones. Well-insulated homes do not create overheating, and every generation of housing presents different strengths and vulnerabilities. Overheating is rarely the result of a single design decision. It emerges from the interaction between climate, solar gain, ventilation, urban form, building operation, thermal mass and the way people live.

We have made significant progress in understanding risk. Future weather files, dynamic thermal modelling and building regulations mean designers have better tools for assessing overheating than ever before. The next challenge is not simply producing better calculations, it is ensuring that this understanding consistently influences the way homes are designed, operated and managed throughout their lives. Heat resilience is not simply a design consideration. It must also be an operational and public health one.

Every generation has adapted homes in response to the greatest health challenges of its time. Ours is no different. We should expect our homes to be low-carbon, affordable to run and healthy places to live. Increasingly, we should also expect them to protect the people living inside them as the climate changes.

This is not a new definition of healthy homes – it is the next chapter in its evolution and as an industry we have a responsibility to protect people from heat risk.