Can't bear your hot house? The Med has lessons for us

The signs read "Don't buy these flats. Too hot" in the windows of Leaside Lock, a residential development in east London, when the message went viral last year.

- Rowan Moore

Last week, residents of the tallest, south-facing tower in the same development complained of temperatures touching 35C indoors. They are not alone. In July, residents of Woodberry Down, in the north of the capital, reported similar temperatures, including a woman 36 weeks' pregnant who feared for the health of her unborn child.

Given that mortality from excessive temperatures is rising, the overheating of homes is more than a matter of discomfort. It is also an agent of social division; in France, Marine Le Pen has chosen to open a culture war over the provision of air conditioning.

In Britain, these stories dramatise a wider question: how can a country that has built its homes to protect against cold and damp more than heat, adapt them to a climate in which serial heatwaves are becoming normal?