As temperatures inch up and concerns grow about climate change, it’s not just people who sweat and suffer: Buildings feel the heat as well. Some real estate planners, owners and designers are making investments now to keep their properties and the people who use them cooler.
While hoteliers in particular are already adapting to higher temperatures and added outdoor demand since the pandemic with more outside weddings, networking events at hotel rooftop restaurants and hotel pool cabana rentals, further changes are underway. Owners are adopting steps that include using more sustainable building materials, adding shade and reducing fossil fuel use.
And with more heat comes more stress across various building types: Owners of single-family homes are facing insurance rate hikes as storms increase, while industrial property developers are seeking cooler locations for factories and shipping centers.
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But as temperatures become more extreme — this July was the hottest recorded in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 175-year database — demand is skyrocketing for design and building practices that minimize heat, keep people comfortable and help both align with sustainability goals.
Derek Gagne, principal at planning, landscape architecture and urban design company EDSA, said the heat that comes with climate change has devastating effects across the board, for both people and properties.
EDSA designs hospitality, commercial, mixed-use and other projects around the world, including in notoriously warm climates in the Middle East, Florida and the Caribbean.
Climate change and sea level rise serve as "imminent threats to the longevity of those projects," so it's top of mind from the beginning of planning and plays out in every part of the project to ensure human comfort and sustainable, cost-effective real estate that is part of the solution, not the problem.
While significant hurdles still stand in the way of the fast, widespread adoption of these practices — namely, costs and compliance — heat-efficient hotel projects are finding success when owners, designers and operators align on long-term goals.
Start with planning
Gagne said higher temperatures have fundamentally affected how design and architecture firms plan their projects to reduce heat and be more sustainable. This requires extra consideration of location, materials and shading to keep both the buildings and the people who use them cooler.
Technology plays a big role today as well.
Hotels and resorts are a big part of EDSA’s portfolio. The company designed the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort in Puerto Rico, Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay in Bahrain and 1 Hotel & Homes South Beach in Miami Beach, Florida, among others. EDSA uses 3D models and geographic information systems to aid in the planning of not just a property's structure, but its location. The team analyzes sun and shade levels and considers whether rooms should be in line with the light and heat of the sun or if they should be shaded.
"We're able to really assist in making sure that even just the location of the architecture on the site is done in a way that is going to be conducive to human comfort," he said. "At the highest level, that's how we can affect climate on a site. … It’s understanding the buildings and how they're going to actually function on a site."
This software also allows EDSA to test environmental conditions before making any final decisions, he said.
Becky Zimmermann, CEO of international design studio and urban planner Design Workshop, said her company uses artificial intelligence tools to model wind and solar output at a given location. This technology allows architects to model certain materials and see which ones emit more or less heat.
Design Workshop’s projects include hotels such as The Little Nell hotel and residences in Aspen, Colorado; urban mixed-use projects such as Scottsdale Quarter outside Phoenix and the Cherry Creek North retail and arts district in Denver.
AI modeling has been "invaluable," Zimmermann said. "What might've taken weeks takes hours."
Focus on human comfort
Gagne said EDSA has always tried to approach its hospitality work in particular from a sustainability point of view, but it ultimately comes down to the operator, owner and developer when it comes to the materials they use. Especially at higher-end hotels and resorts, owners often have interest in sourcing local products.
The cost of these local materials can be higher, but there are some cost savings in the long run since good materials require less upkeep and maintenance over time, he said.
It's common for clients to ask about the solar reflectance index, or SRI, of materials, which indicates how much heat will stay on the site compared to how much it'll reflect, Gagne said. The goal is for more of the heat to reflect.
"Creating human comfort ... on everything we're doing is the primary goal," he said. "It comes down to every material that you're touching, walking on, sitting on, sitting beside. Evaluating all those materials, for us, has become pretty commonplace on any project that we're doing in these hotter areas of the world."
The Conrad Orlando, which opened in January, is one example of these elements coming together, Gagne said. EDSA used as many natural materials as possible to help with SRI levels. Designers also used plants to both soften the architecture style and add as much natural shade for functionality and sustainability. Lighter colors on rooftops and pool decks also help reflect heat. White chaises and white umbrellas line the pool.
Another surprise cooling element? Artificial turf. It may not count as a natural material, but turf instead of real grass at outdoor wedding venues and on event lawns is cooler and requires less water and maintenance in the long run, Gagne said.
Water is of course the obvious natural cooling agent, and Gagne called it a main way of changing microclimates and keeping spaces cooler, not just when you're in the pool.
"Proximity to water, obviously the ability to be in water, but water itself is a huge factor in changing everything from the humidity, the air level, the quality of air around those spaces, and obviously the touch-and-feel factor," he said.
Zimmermann said designing to combat heat at any outdoor space requires paying close attention to shade and using those lighter-colored materials.
At hotels and resorts, pool cabanas have skyrocketed in popularity over the past several years and provide not just shade, but additional revenues for these properties, she said.
For restaurants and any outdoor seating areas around pools and retail corridors, she prefers to use portable umbrellas instead of permanent awnings so people can choose to capture the sun or add more shade.
In addition to hotels and resorts, Design Workshop also works on urban/downtown district projects. Reducing heat at these projects comes with the help of shade from a tall friend: trees.
"It starts with trees. Maturing trees are really the best way to combat heat," she said. "One of the [biggest] considerations is just thinking about trees as necessary infrastructure, just like you would the sidewalk and water and wastewater and electricity, and giving them the best condition to grow, especially in an urban environment."
Shading has even become a consideration at Design Workshop's ski resorts, with ice rinks needing additional shade in the winter season, something that wasn't a consideration in the past, she said.
The company’s ski projects include developing a sustainability plan for Whistler, in British Columbia, designing the Lake Songhua Resort in Changchun, Jilin Province, China; and resort- and master-planning Salt Lake City’s Snowbasin Resort.
Zimmermann said data trends are pointing to climate change shortening the ski season, especially at the beginning of the season. While the process of creating artificial snow has become more sustainable, it's still a use of resources, and getting resorts ready for opening dates around Thanksgiving has only increased the need for making this snow.
Moving forward
The Hotel Marcel New Haven made headlines when it opened in 2022 as the first U.S. hotel to operate fully on renewable energy. Part of Hilton’s Tapestry Collection, the building was originally designed as headquarters of the Armstrong Rubber Company and opened in 1970 as an example of Bauhaus architecture.
Fast-forward half a century and the building found new life as a hotel and model for sustainability-minded real estate in the future, according to the Hotel Marcel’s owner, architect and developer Bruce Becker.
High-performance windows, exterior insulation, continuous air-sealing and heat recovery technology reduces the energy needed for both cooling and heating at the property by up to 80%, Becker told Hotel News Now in an email interview.
On the sustainability front, Hotel Marcel is an all-electric building with no use of fossil fuels, making it the first hotel in the U.S. that "operate[s] in a way that does not make the climate crisis worse."
It’s only a matter of time before the widespread adoption of energy-efficient, all-electric operations takes place, Becker said.
“What we offer can be replicated cost-effectively across the industry,” he said. “If our replicable toolkit of decarbonization ideas is adopted broadly by other hotel owners, brands and operators, it will have a rapid and transformative impact on the hospitality industry to reduce its carbon footprint.”
But it’s not just the hospitality industry facing these challenges.
Governments across the United States are implementing mandates in response to climbing temperatures. Buildings account for 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions, according to the World Green Building Council, making real estate a focus for carbon-curbing measures.
California, Colorado and New Jersey are among states with benchmarking laws for public and commercial buildings, requiring the submission of annual energy and water data into a national database: the EPA Portfolio Manager.
In New York City, the largest city in the U.S. by population, emissions from buildings comprise nearly two-thirds of total city emissions, according to Carbon Direct. Building owners are required to submit their energy usage, with roughly 1,400 buildings at risk of annual fines if they’re not in compliance when the measure goes into effect next year, according to the city.
In Denver, buildings and homes account for 64% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the city’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency. The city’s Energize Denver program aims to reduce commercial buildings’ energy use by 30% by 2030.
Some carbon-cutting requirements across the country include LEED certification, energy performance standards and solution-based upgrades such as solar panels or electrification of heating and cooling systems.
Some of the first steps building owners and developers can take to becoming more sustainable include adding EV charging stations, installing solar canopies above parking lots, replacing gas ranges with induction ranges and using batteries rather than a generator for emergency power, Becker said.
Zimmermann said her firm is setting goals now aimed at achieving sustainability and a climate-resilient future. This means working toward 100% renewable electricity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating carbon-free buildings.
"For those of us who are really committed to that in the design profession, these are all things that we've set goals around," she said. We are "working with cities and developers and hotel operators to achieve [these goals] going forward and hopefully accomplishing a lot of this even in the next five years."
Over the years, Gagne said what qualifies a property as sustainable has changed. Brands have started to move away from the trend of checking sustainability boxes by receiving a LEED certification to prioritizing human comfort and mental wellness through sustainable projects.
By taking a holistic approach that shows an effort to provide a more sustainable product, guests can feel better about their stays.
"It's kind of insane to just think about what the tourism and hospitality industry does to the carbon footprint, but I think that when people can leave these properties knowing that these brands and these operators are conscious of that, and they're trying to offset that and they've approached the project with that in mind, there's a feel-good takeaway from that that lets people vacation and retreat in a way that's more responsible," he said.