Subtropical Climate Responsive Design
In subtropical regions like South East Queensland, designing in response to climate isn’t optional — it’s essential. Our latest design research session explored how buildings across the Asia Pacific prioritise airflow, shade, connection to nature, and passive comfort.
At its core, climate-responsive design starts with people. It’s about how we live, move, work, and gather. Where we seek shade. Where air needs to flow. Where we want to linger. Designing for climate isn’t just about performance — it’s about how a space feels.
The principles themselves aren’t new. Eaves, verandas, courtyards and cross ventilation have long been part of subtropical architecture. What matters is how we use them now — not as stylistic gestures, but as purposeful responses to people, place and climate.
Sometimes, the best move is leaving space for the climate to do its part. That means restraint: letting the outdoors be part of the plan, allowing air to circulate, and choosing materials that breathe. Balance comes from knowing when to open things up, and when to create shade, shelter or enclosure.
Across the projects we studied — from Brisbane to Byron Bay, Vietnam to Manila — the same lesson came through. Designing for climate looks different in every place. A shaded courtyard in Vietnam isn’t the same as a green balcony in Manila, or a breezy pavilion on the New South Wales coast. Each reflects its environment, rather than resisting it. The goal is always the same: spaces that are comfortable, responsive, and tuned to the rhythms of climate.
At its best, subtropical design is about intention. Climate-responsive thinking already exists in many local and traditional approaches, but the real work is in applying these moves deliberately, embedding them into the way we design every time. It’s not about collecting more ideas, but making climate thinking a natural part of the process — considered from the start, not added at the end.
Subtropical design isn’t a style, it’s a mindset. One that asks us to start with climate, and let everything else follow. If you’re interested in how your project can work with the subtropical environment, and not against it, we’d love to hear from you.