A FEW WEEKS AGO, as a cool change swept away Melbourne’s mid-January heatwave, my partner and I went for a walk around our block. The air temperature had plummeted about ten degrees in 30 minutes, but as we passed a new two-storey home with no surrounding vegetation and a mound of gravel for a front lawn, I felt a surge of residual warmth. The house’s dark-grey exterior seemed to shimmer with stored-up heat.

Hurrying on, I wondered how this house — and so many others like it — would cope with future heatwaves.