Compare these two Chiang Mai buildings:
Left a Government School, facing the hot West Sun, Cooled by shady eaves and trees at ground level.
Right a Private Hotel, facing hot West Sun, No shade
Cooled by air-con, electricity from Mae Moh dirty coal
The hotel pollutes the air, kills people in Lampang and pours CO2 into the atmosphere making the World Hotter.
Once Chiang Mai had no air-con. Now we has thousands of hotel rooms and apartments with little or no shade and poor or no ventilation. Some apartment residents can spend upwards of 2000 baht per month on air-con.
Our architects can help remedy this situation by:
1 – Providing designs for window shades appropriate to the direction faced (South facing need to be much longer than North and similarly West than East). Designs that are typhoon proof, for new and for existing structures.
2 – Urging Local & Central government to adopt shading and ventilation standards and provide loan finance through organisations such as EGAT for modifying existing buildings and progressively restrict air-con use.
Governments can listen to this and act accordingly while restricting polluting vehicles and planting tall growing trees.
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