Towards an Architecture of Allyship

In 1959, sociologist Peter Townsend set about visiting older people’s care homes across the UK, which were a relatively new concept at the time. A product of the postwar consensus and burgeoning welfare state in the UK, they were designed to replace the Victorian workhouses where an increasing number of older people of limited means were being housed in harsh conditions. Many care homes were set up in these former workhouses, which were spaces designed to be a hostile deterrent to worklessness. Their architectural assemblages reinforced authoritarian discipline and took many principles from prison design.

Can the World’s Economic Firefighter Adapt to the 21st Century?

As wars, trade spats, and AI reshape the global economy, the IMF has held its role as the world’s lender-of-last-resort steady. Much of its governance, including countries’ shares of voting rights, have remained the same over decades, often requiring lending countries to return to the same austerity playbook. Gita Gopinath, former first managing director of the IMF says that the stability is by design in times of greater geopolitical uncertainty while Boston University’s Kevin Gallagher says that some parts of the IMF are due for an upgrade.

SPH in India: Partnering for Progress on Disease, Climate, and Sanitation

As India launches its first national census in 15 years following a COVID-related postponement from 2021, researchers at the School of Public Health and their Indian collaborators foresee opportunities to strengthen and scale their existing portfolios of work on air pollution, sanitation access, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health in the world’s most populous country.

In Pakistan’s deadly heat, low-cost cooling tools offer a lifeline for pregnant women

Canvas canopies, hand fans, damp cloths and solar reflective paint may not sound like elaborate medical interventions. But in Pakistan’s hottest neighborhoods, they can act as a lifeline for pregnant women and newborns from low-income households.

In a recent trial of affordable cooling solutions led by researchers at Pakistan’s Aga Khan University, low-tech interventions were able to cut indoor temperatures by 3-4° Celsius (5-7° Fahrenheit). Air-conditioning, and even fans, are often not available due to unreliable electricity supply.

Too hot to learn: cooling Argentina’s overheating schools

There have been 23 heatwaves in Rosario over the last 15 years, the same number as in the previous five decades, according to data from September 2025 from the National Meteorological Service (SMN). In the city, a heatwave occurs when the minimum temperature exceeds 20.5C and the maximum temperature exceeds 33.4C for three consecutive days. The longest in Rosario’s history was one of the most recent, occurring in March 2023 and lasting 10 consecutive days. During that one, a school in the city drew global attention after telling pupils to come to school in swimwear to try to stay cool.

Football in sun and without shadow: How extreme heat puts tomorrow’s stars at risk

Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called football, not only the most popular sport in the world, but “the music of the body, the festival of the eyes”. It is a beloved hobby of hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers worldwide. But extreme heat is putting their well-being at risk. Researchers, coaches and scientists are now racing to find solutions, ranging from early warnings and awareness campaigns to banning synthetic pitches that trap heat.

We should be telling the stories of African cities

When Elaine Nsoesie realised that no book had yet explored the complex intersections of cities, health, and inequality in Africa, she decided to help fill that gap. The result, Urban Health in Africa, co-edited with Blessing Mberu, brings together African voices to examine how social, historical, and environmental forces shape public health across the continent’s cities.

Street vendors are struggling with rising temperatures

When a person is exposed to extreme heat, their body increases blood flow to the skin as it desperately tries to cool down. This attempt to cool creates more strain on internal organs and, if exposure is prolonged, serious organ failure is a possible outcome.

“The effects are particularly severe on the brain, although organs such as the heart and kidneys are where we have recorded chronic failures,” says Jonathan Lee, a researcher in environmental health who works on heat at Boston University in the United States.

Rethinking cities through global collaboration

Cities are more than skylines and subways — they are lived experiences shaped by the people who call them home. Recognising this, five world-leading institutions have launched the Global Alliance on Sustainable Urban Societies to reframe how cities are studied and shaped, with a human-centred focus that responds to today’s most pressing urban challenges.