Next friday, the dti will take delivery of a report into the likely impact of climate change on the UK's existing buildings. It will inform developers, designers, contractors and housebuilders that they are going to have to make changes to their products. It warns that from 2020 onwards, homes built to comply with current Building Regulations will become uncomfortably warm in the summer. And by 2080, a naturally ventilated 1960s office will be hotter than a Cairo street in July. The study is one of the first to make a quantitative assessment of the effect of climate change on the built environment. It was commissioned by the DTI and based on research led by Arup. "The proposal was to look at the potential impact of climate change on the current building stock and then to look at what could be done to minimise that impact," says Gavin Davies, associate director at Arup Research + Development, and one of the report's authors.
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