Lessons from Europe’s Heatwave: Traditional Batak Houses Prove Zero-Carbon Architecture Already Existed
The extreme heatwave that struck Europe in June–July 2026 (40.5°C in Barcelona, a new record in the United Kingdom) underscores the impact of post–World War II architectural modernism: uniform, energy-intensive, and built from glass and aluminum. According to Dr. Ir. Ar. Achmad Delianur Nasution (a lecturer in Architecture at USU’s Faculty of Engineering), Indonesia has in fact had the solution for hundreds of years: the traditional Batak house, which applies the principle of zero carbon through natural materials and natural lighting and ventilation. This article traces the shift from traditional architecture to modernism, the emergence of the green architecture movement in the 1980s–90s and its regulation in Indonesia, and how the principles of the UN’s SDGs have in fact long been practiced through the local wisdom of the Indonesian archipelago.
