Climate change: Saving Athens from itself

Public water reservoirs and drinking fountains, splash pads and fountains, pocket parks, green parking lots, trees and bushes in public spaces, sustainable mobility and reused buildings, starting with the public ones, are just some of the measures architect Petros Babasikas and his team recommend for Athens in the age of climate change.

As heatwaves - like the ones Greece has been experiencing this summer - become longer and more intense, modern cities need to develop new strategies and a practical toolkit to deal with the new challenges, Babasikas, head of the architecture program at the University of Toronto and of the Petros Babasikas Office, tells Kathimerini.

"The situation in Athens is similar to other big Mediterranean cities which developed residentially mainly between 1950 and 1980. Athens has a large heated mass, materials that absorb and store heat, such as...