India’s cities are becoming sweltering heat islands, enclosed in concrete and glass that trap heat rather than repel it. With over 70 per cent of the buildings expected to exist in 2050 yet to be built, there is a narrow and urgent window to rethink how we design our homes, offices, malls, and urban infrastructure. At the heart of this rethink must lie a radical revision of India’s building codes—one that moves away from uniformity and embraces regional diversity, resilience, and thermal comfort based on the climatic requirements.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) needs to facilitate this transformation it has to break the glass ceiling of the building code, and the government has to recognise that one size fits all does not work in today’s world. For years, India’s National Building Code (NBC) has provided a standardised framework applied uniformly across the country, irrespective of whether the building is in the humid heat of Chennai, the dry plains of Lucknow, or the sub-zero terrain of Ladakh. This one-size-fits-all approach overlooks the fundamental truth of climate-responsive architecture: buildings must adapt to their specific location.

India, geographically and climatically diverse, requires differentiated codes. I had earlier written about our cities becoming air-conditioned hell, and the MOHUA responded with a proposal to limit the setting of air conditioners to 20°C to 28°C in nudging behavioural change. But it merely treats the symptom. The real cure lies in ensuring that buildings don’t require heavy air conditioning in the first place. This can only happen if building design incorporates passive cooling techniques, material innovation, ventilation strategies, and above all, climatic responsiveness.

Take, for example, the

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