Design features can help us live without air-conditioning

I refer to the letter “Changes in surroundings essential for livability” (April 18). I would strongly discourage any sentiments that equate air-conditioning with livability or progress in society.

We should indeed look for improvements in building design, but we should also appreciate the good points in traditional architecture such as the kampung house and, yes, some of our current hawker centres too. There is no basis to advocate air-conditioning as a de facto progressive solution.

With architectural design features such as an open layout, sloped roof and openings at a high level, cross-ventilation can be induced, resulting in a pleasant breeze through the premises. This has been done in many hawker centres.

Installing air-conditioning in hawker centres would take away their permeable character. You can put up glass walls, but you will still need many doors — a disruptive change to how they are accessed now. It would also mean more extensive measures to get rid of kitchen exhaust and ensure that cooking smells do not circulate in the air-conditioning system. The feel, look and acoustics of the hawker centre would just not be the same.

Cooling the interior also means pushing the heat out to somewhere else — the adjacent market and walkways. Artificial cooling is an unsustainable measure that will always be at odds with our tropical climate.

We can certainly get used to the lazy comforts of air-conditioning, but we can also conscientiously design our spaces to comfortably do without it.