Intense summer heat in Japan’s capital city for the month of July killed scores of people, many of whom were found inside their homes with an air conditioner installed but not turned on.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/L7QqE
Good 'ol wooden structure in Japan wouldn’t have this problem, but not for Tokyo.
Tons of structures in Tokyo are wooden. I lived in a steel-and-block place (which is apparently quite rare with most being steel-reinforced concrete), but all the apartments and single-family homes around me were wooden. Moreso when I moved further out of the city center.
I now live further north in Japan in a classically-designed wooden home and it’s still terrible in these temperatures (and we’re not nearly as hot as Tokyo up here).
I actually talked to an architect about this a couple of years ago and, though structures here are meant to breathe (mostly for airflow to avoid mold and later because of big problems with off-gassing and “sick house syndrome” when they tried to build more sealed structures with mechanical ventilation), they were not meant for the sustained hot conditions we face here today.
