On 5th October 2025, we held a Citizen Dialogue which brought over 100 residents and experts together to discuss how we experience heat in our homes and how we can stay cool, comfortable and resilient in a warming Singapore. The Dialogue is part of the Climate Resilient Citizenry and Staying Cool projects, led by the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities (LKYCIC) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), in collaboration with the Heat Resilience and Performance Centre at the Yong Yoo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore-ETH Centre. Funded by the Social Science Research Council and Tote Board, the projects seek to deepen our understanding on how individuals experience and adapt to urban heat, and to use these everyday experiences of heat as a starting point for sparking climate action in Singapore.
The Dialogue was a platform for genuine two-way exchanges between residents and experts. Scientific insights about urban heat and indoor thermal adaptation were translated into everyday language and experiences, while residents shared their own practical wisdom and lived realities. Through these conversations, new ideas blending technical knowledge with community experience emerged and were collectively refined.
Expert sharing by Dr Harvey Neo (LKYCIC, SUTD); Dr Jason Lee (Heat Resilience and Performance Centre, Yong Yoo Lin School of Medicine, NUS); Dr Zheng Kai (ASD, SUTD)
Voting on possible climate-related regulations
A highlight of the session was a home-mapping exercise. Participants first sketched the reality of their homes – how spaces are laid out, where heat tends to accumulate, and how they move through their daily routines. These reflections along with group discussions surfaced a wealth of tacit knowledge about how people are already coping with heat. Residents compared what worked for them, from small spatial tweaks such the creative use and positioning of electric fans – often multiple of them, to household habits like coordinating shared use of air-conditioned rooms during certain periods of the day. Residents also spoke candidly about common barriers like limited airflow or discomfort from external noise, smells, and mosquitoes, as well as everyday tensions that emerge when family members share the same space but have different routines or comfort preferences. They then reimagined their homes, experimenting with ways to rearrange furniture and improve shading and ventilation, while considering how these choices can be negotiated within the family to balance comfort and shared living needs. This process made the science tangible and left participants with practical ideas they can act on immediately.
Residents mapping their homes
Throughout the Dialogue, residents found shared ground in their experiences, discovering that while every home is unique, many of the same principles on airflow, material choices, and spatial form make a real difference. Experts also gained new perspectives, learning from the lived experiences and social dimensions of adapting to heat that no dataset alone could reveal.
By the end of the Dialogue, participants walked away not just with new knowledge, but with a sense of agency, equipped with practical skills to make small but meaningful changes today. For the team, the dialogue reaffirmed that resilience is not only about infrastructure or technology, but also about comfort, connection, and collective imagination; and that conversations about heat can open new pathways for talking about climate change itself.
