I don't know who wrote the article in the OP< but it wasn't a Brit, they spoke of ''apartments' we don't call them apartments ..
ThIS is the reason we don't have AC routinely in private houses..
Both old, Victorian-era architecture and newly-developed properties in the U.K. are inadequately prepared for hot weather, Marialena Nikolopoulou, professor of sustainable architecture at the University of Kent, tells TIME. While the thick, stone walls of older homes help to keep internal environments cool, large windows and unsuitable insulation can counteract the benefits. British homes are built to keep heat in and cold out
With
modern buildings, problems arise from shoddy design. “Frequently nowadays, developers buy a flat and refurbish it to sell for profit. So they try to do it the cheapest possible way,” Nikolopoulou says, referring to buildings that cram many apartments within it. Doing so reduces the likelihood of cross ventilation from windows across the building, she says.
In hotter European countries, like
Spain, apartment blocks are often built around a central cavity that allows for a continuous flow of air. Using inappropriate building materials to improve appearance or provide cheap insulation in large apartment blocks can lead to what Nikolopoulou calls a “greenhouse effect” in summer, where heat has nowhere to go.
What’s more, experts say that climate change will soon render winter-proof design useless for many months of the year. “By 2050, we will regularly have temperatures above 35°C in the south of the U.K.,”
said Chloe Brimicombe, a heat stress researcher at the University of Reading. This could cause an extra 5,000-7,000 deaths from heat exhaustion by the 2050s.
