Cooling Darwin

Overview

This project was a part of the City Deals initiative to mitigate and adapt to Darwin’s challenging seasonal conditions and revitalise the CBD. With Darwin facing a crisis of heat island effects, record-breaking extreme heat, reduced urban activity, soaring energy needs, and increasing thermal discomfort, the design team aligned the work of CBD Heat Mitigation study of Professor Matt Santamouris (UNSW) together with Professor Lawrence Nield, former NT Government Architect.

The UNSW study demonstrated the significant ‘coolth’ generated by the parks surrounding the city and the extreme urban heat generated by the ‘black top’ roads.

Work Undertaken

Addressed the need for coolth – dramatically reducing surface temperatures utilising large spreading canopies and other simple means to show a sustainable way forward for human settlement in the changing climate of northern and wider Australia.

City streets and laneways were transformed so large shade trees could thrive and dramatically drop surface temperatures.