Case study of
#00008 Passive-cooling urban design plus formal heat governance
Seville, Spain
#00002
Implementer
City of Seville with University of Seville (research evaluation)
Timeline
Jun 1, 2025 – Sep 30, 2025
Location
Description
Seville revived a roughly 3,000-year-old passive-cooling technique, channeling air through underground galleries (a qanat-style system) to pre-cool it before delivering it to buildings and public space. The city has long adapted to extreme heat through traditional built form — narrow streets and shaded courtyards — and has more recently added a formal heat-governance layer, becoming the first city in the world to name and categorize heatwaves the way storms are named. The combination illustrates both halves of this solution: physical passive cooling plus governance that raises public salience of heat as a hazard.
Metrics
1Lessons learned
- Pre-industrial passive-cooling techniques can deliver large measurable temperature reductions with minimal operating energy when reintroduced deliberately.
- Naming and categorizing heatwaves is a low-cost governance move that reframes heat as a hazard the public prepares for, complementing physical interventions.
- Independent academic evaluation (University of Seville) is what turns a heritage revival into transferable evidence.
Documented May 22, 2026