Extreme heat due to climate change, heatwaves and the urban heat island effect amplify urban heat-health risks. Addressing urban heat is now an adaptive policy priority for global and Australian cities. The microclimates of pedestrians are influenced by the design of buildings which are the basic units of urban climate. For architects to adopt building climatology principles they require predictive information about the microclimate effects of building design at spatial scales relevant to their decision-making. Despite recent advances in urban heat mitigation technologies significant knowledge gaps remain in the climatology of facades . This research aims to addresses this shortcoming by assessing the effect of facade design on facade surface temperature and outdoor microclimate. Ground-based high-resolution thermal and multi-spectral image data were combined with short-term near-facade micrometeorological measurements to investigate the relationships between facade brightness surface temperature, near-facade mean radiant temperature and the sub-facet-, facet- and canyon-scale surface properties of forty multi-storey urban building facades in Greater Sydney. Key outcomes include the development of a methodology for in-situ thermal, spectral reflectance and facade and canyon surface property data acquisition, processing and analyses and the specification of statistical models to predict facade brightness surface temperature. The spatial effects statistical analysis quantified the individual contributions of sub-facet-scale material and geometric properties to intra-facade surface temperature variability. The multilevel statistical model quantified the relative contributions of near-facade micrometeorological quantities, canyon and solar geometry and facade surface properties to inter-facade variability of facade surface temperature. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the research methodology, provide facade design principles to mitigate near-facade pedestrian thermal exposure and illustrate the utility of the predictive statistical models for the assessment of potential facade design modifications on facade surface temperature at spatial scales relevant to the architect s decision-making. The methods, routines and results advance the application of climate sensitive building design through the integration of quantitative and visual communication amenable to architects.