Attitude · 4 min

Coolness is also a feeling

For a long time I believed a beautiful room must have sun, a lot of it, all day. Today I think differently. In summer the shady side is my favourite, the cool, quiet room to the back where the heat does not reach. Coolness, you see, is not only a temperature, it is a feeling, and it does the whole day good.

Avoiding the heat rather than fighting it

We set up machines that hum and eat electricity to cool against the summer. Yet the old houses knew better. They avoid the heat, with thick walls, with a draught, with shutters closed by day. I like this cleverness. It works with nature, not against it, and it makes no noise doing so.

What coolness does to us

In a cool room you grow slower, in the good sense. You lie down, you read, you take a pause. You spend the greatest heat of the day inside, in the half-dark, and go out again only in the evening when the city cools. This is how people in hot countries have always lived. It is no sacrifice, it is a rhythm, and it does good.

Green as a counterweight

And then you need a place to step out to when it grows cooler. A garden, a tree, a bench in the shade. Nothing calms me in summer like green nearby. It need be no park, a small courtyard with a tree is enough. Cool inside and green outside, a city summer needs no more to be beautiful.