Building for a hotter planet: Article 25's summer of passive design talks
As global temperatures climb and extreme heat becomes the new normal for billions of people, the question of how we design and build is no longer academic - it's urgent.
This summer, Article 25 took that message to three major industry platforms, sharing two decades of frontline experience designing schools, hospitals and homes in some of the world's most climate-stressed environments.
CIOB: Passive Design, Construction and Cooling for a Hotter Planet
In June, Article 25 was represented at a CPD-accredited webinar hosted by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), titled Passive Design, Construction and Cooling for a Hotter Planet. Chaired by Amanda Williams, CIOB's Head of Environmental Sustainability, the session drew a large and engaged audience from across the UK and beyond, generating a steady stream of questions on everything from UK retrofit to building regulation.
The webinar walked attendees through the core principles of passive design - orientation, shading, thermal mass, natural ventilation and daylighting - brought to life through projects in Niger, Tanzania and India's Ladakh region. The Niger college project, delivered by Article 25 and built using locally sourced laterite stone and a ventilated double-roof system, recorded internal temperatures up to eight degrees cooler than outside - with no mechanical cooling at all.
The message landed clearly: passive strategies aren't a fringe idea, but a proven, low-cost route to comfortable, resilient buildings, whether in the Sahel or in a Victorian terrace in London.
Sustainable Buildings & Construction Summit 2026 and the Stone & Surfaces Show
Article 25 also took its work to two further platforms this season.
At the Sustainable Buildings & Construction Summit 2026 in Lausanne - co-organised by EPFL's Centre for Worldwide Sustainable Construction and UNEP's Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction(GlobalABC) - the team joined a workshop on disaster-resilient construction, drawing on the Dominica Housing Recovery Project, and delivered an Innovation Spotlight on the Niger college scheme, connecting with practitioners and policymakers shaping the sector's climate response.
At the Stone & Surfaces Show, Article 25 presented Building with Laterite Stone: Low-carbon, affordable, beautiful, a closer look at the materials and methods behind the Collège Hampaté Bâ project in Niger - an award-winning exemplar school for the Sahel showing how locally sourced, low-carbon materials can outperform imported cement-based construction on cost, comfort and character.
Why this matters
Across all three events, the same thread ran through: as extreme heat reshapes where and how people can live safely, the built environment has a central role to play - not through ever more mechanical cooling, but through smarter, climate-responsive design rooted in context, craft and centuries of vernacular knowledge.
Article 25 has delivered over 100 projects in more than 30 countries putting that thinking into practice, and we're proud to share what we've learned with the wider industry. This summer's events reflect a wider ambition: to be a trusted voice on passive design and climate resilience, and an active partner in shaping how the built environment responds to a warming world. We look forward to developing these partnerships further and joining more events like these in the future.
