By Muhammad Atif Ismail Multan, Aug 16 (APP):The houses of rural South Punjab once knew how to breathe. Their high ceilings exhaled the day’s heat, courtyards drew in the evening air and verandahs offered shade long before anyone had heard of climate change. That quiet architecture is disappearing before our eyes. Across the region’s villages, concrete is swallowing courtyards, verandahs are vanishing and trees are being …
Changing Architectural traditions intensifying climate impacts in rural South Punjab
By Muhammad Atif Ismail
Multan, Aug 16 (APP):The houses of rural South Punjab once knew how to breathe. Their high ceilings exhaled the day’s heat, courtyards drew in the evening air and verandahs offered shade long before anyone had heard of climate change.
That quiet architecture is disappearing before our eyes. Across the region’s villages, concrete is swallowing courtyards, verandahs are vanishing and trees are being cleared. Homes shaped by generations of living with the heat are giving way to enclosed structures that absorb and trap it.
For generations, rural homes in South Punjab were shaped as much by the climate as by necessity. High ceilings let hot air rise, open courtyards drew in evening breezes, shaded verandahs softened the sun, while ventilators and surrounding trees worked together to keep homes naturally cool through the region’s punishing summers.
Today, that design is fading fast. Modern village houses are increasingly smaller, more enclosed and built mostly of concrete. Courtyards are shrinking, verandahs are disappearing and greenery is making way for
construction.
The shift is especially visible during the current spell of intense heat and humidity. Residents across districts including Multan, Vehari, Muzaffargarh and Khanewal describe conditions as increasingly unbearable, with little relief even after sunset.
Older residents, including former UC Councilor Abdul Kareem and Vehari resident Zafar Iqbal, said the difference between today’s homes and those they grew up in is stark. In the past, families gathered in courtyards and verandahs in the evening, waiting for the day’s heat to lift from the walls.
Today, many of those open spaces no longer exist. Concrete absorbs heat throughout the day and continues radiating it well into the night, leaving residents with little relief after dark.
Civil Engineer Malik Zia Rauf, talking to APP, said traditional architecture was closely tuned to local weather. High ceilings and ventilators allowed hot air to rise and escape, keeping cooler air lower in the room.
“Verandahs added a shaded buffer between the outdoors and living spaces,” he said, allowing families to sit outside during the day and sleep there on hot nights without direct exposure to the sun.
Courtyards also brought light and air into homes while providing families with an open space to breathe.
These features are disappearing as families grow and ancestral land is divided among children. Every available inch is increasingly used for construction, leaving little room for courtyards, gardens or trees.
Construction company owner Malik Muhammad Ramzan said changing tastes were also contributing to the shift. Many people now preferred newer building styles, he said, even though older houses tended to be airier and better lit.
The change is not only architectural but environmental. A house shaded by trees and open space responds differently to heat than one hemmed in by concrete. A shaded verandah offers protection, while a sealed, low-ceiling ed room can hold heat.
That difference matters as climate change intensifies. South Punjab is among Pakistan’s hottest regions, with summer temperatures regularly exceeding 45 degrees Celsius. As extreme heat and humid conditions become more frequent, the loss of climate-responsive architecture is stripping away a layer of natural protection, Rauf said.
Dr Waqas Arqam, a medical specialist, said the consequences went beyond discomfort. Homes that retain heat overnight give residents, particularly children and older people, little opportunity to recover from daytime heat stress. Poor ventilation can also allow humidity to build up indoors, worsening conditions for people with respiratory or heart ailments.
In a region where many households cannot rely on air conditioning because of cost or frequent power outages, the design of a home can increasingly determine how safely a family gets through the summer.
Trees are disappearing from home landscapes too. Where village houses once commonly had trees around their courtyards, greenery is now increasingly associated with farmland rather than residences, a casualty of shrinking plots and construction needs.
Laique Sheikhana, a resident of Nawabpur village who has maintained a garden around his home, said the difference was noticeable. His trees provide fruit and shade, he said, and homes surrounded by greenery do not experience the same intensity of heat as those dominated by concrete.
His experience reflects a broader transformation across rural South Punjab: a climate-adapted village landscape steadily giving way to a concrete one.
Modern homes bring real advantages, including privacy, security and more efficient use of increasingly scarce land. But Rauf said modern construction does not have to mean abandoning courtyards, shade and natural airflow. Even smaller houses can incorporate cross-ventilation, ventilators, shaded windows, rooftop greenery and carefully placed trees.
Some low-cost measures require little expense, he said. Painting exterior walls and rooftops in lighter colours can reflect more sunlight, while planting a fast-growing tree on the sun-facing side of a house can eventually shade its walls for much of the day.
The villages of South Punjab may be moving toward modern homes, but the climate is reminding them of an old truth: sometimes the simplest designs offer the strongest protection. The challenge now is to modernize without losing the wisdom that once helped these homes breathe.
The future may depend not on rebuilding the past, but on remembering what it got right.
