Understanding Climate-Responsive Cities and the UAE's Plan for Daily Life in Extreme Environments with Kavan Choksi
Kavan Choksi on How the UAE is Rethinking City Life for Extreme Heat In many parts of the world, city design starts with comfortable weather as the default. In the UAE, heat is part of the starting point, and it shapes nearly every decision about how people move, gather, and live day to day. Urban planners, architects, and developers are leaning into climate-responsive strategies that make outdoor life more realistic, even when temperatures climb. In the middle of these conversations, Kavan Choksi recognizes that superior design is not only about buildings, but it is also about how people experience a place minute by minute. That mindset has pushed the UAE to treat shade, airflow, and thermal comfort as basic infrastructure rather than optional extras. Instead of leaving cooling to private spaces only, city planning increasingly considers public comfort as a shared priority. That includes streets that feel more walkable, parks that stay usable longer, and community area...
