The book Sustainable Tropical Cities, published by the Institute of Tropical Architecture (San José, Costa Rica) in 2006, gathers the conclusions its authors compiled over years of observation and study. Bruno Stagno and Jimena Ugarte, both architects and immigrants enamored with the tropics, aimed to demonstrate the specific characteristics that cities located in the tropical belt possess—or should possess—while introducing an unprecedented topic.
Bioclimatically inspired sustainable architecture demands environments with suitable characteristics to harness natural light, breezes, shade, vegetation, and rain, achieving well-being within porous, non-hermetic buildings. The urban environment becomes crucial in this contemporary challenge of conditioning with the climate to achieve sustainability in architecture and urbanism—an unavoidable task for a planet affected by climate change. This is the conceptual framework that guides the book's narrative.
