Tropical Architecture for a Warming World

As we look to a future shaped by climate change and record temperatures, architects, urban designers and city authorities must design in ways that help residents cope with new environmental extremes.

This spring the Victoria & Albert Museum opened its latest exhibition Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence, which looks at the ways in which Modernism was adapted to the hot, humid climate of countries colonised by Britain in the 1940s and how, after Independence, India and Ghana, adopted the style as a symbol of modernity, self-actualisation and progressiveness, distinct from colonial culture.

For the Great Exhibition Road Festival, its curators will look at how Tropical Modernism sought to work with rather than against climate, and how its scientifically informed techniques might provide architects with sustainable solutions to increasingly extreme climate conditions.

Date: Saturday 15 June
Time: 13.30-14.25

The event is intended for a 14+ audience; it has step-free access and a hearing loop system.