Building a climate resilient future starts with climate justice

Urban heat islands are a growing global concern. Densely populated urban cities, such as New York and London, experience intensified temperatures due to concentrated infrastructure and limited green spaces. Cities in the Global South face similar challenges but with fewer resources, only exacerbating health and economic pressures. With extreme heat now affecting more than 2 billion urban residents, equivalent to 25% of the total global population, the urgency for climate resiliency and climate justice becomes critical.

Climate resiliency and climate justice are deeply interconnected concepts. Climate resiliency refers to the ability of communities and ecosystems to adapt and thrive amidst changing climate conditions. Climate justice highlights the unequal burden climate change places on low-income and marginalized communities. 

At Henning Larsen, we are fortunate to have an industrial PhD candidate, Gülin Yazicioglu, investigating the urban heat island effect and climate resilient cities. Her work centers on mitigating the impacts of urban heat islands to guide climate-responsive design decisions for the future. One of the key results of her research will be the creation of user-friendly design guidelines tailored to various design scales and climates, aimed at enhancing the resilience, sustainability, and livability of urban environments.

Most recently, Gülin participated in ETH Zurich's Future Cities Lab, where her team explored the relationship between various urban morphologies and their effects on the intensity of urban heat islands. Following this, she was invited to join a three-day workshop hosted by the MIT Senseable City Lab in Amsterdam which began with an introduction to sensing systems, where participants built their first portable sensor, the Octopus, developed by the SCL team. Using data gathered on a ‘heat hunt’ with tools such as Octopus, MeteoTracker, and Kestrel to measure temperature hotspots across the city, Gülin’s group collaborated to create a data-driven story using their collected measurements to address identified problems, earning them a top-three group prize.

Tackling social disparities with innovation

Addressing social injustice and thermal comfort is key to driving change. That’s why, in partnership with Ramboll and the University of Pennsylvania, we have secured $149,000 funding from the Ramboll Foundation to develop a low-cost, accessible urban cooling solution, KlimaKover, for all communities. Designed by an international team of researchers from institutions in the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe, the funding will support the creation of a prototypical external autonomous pavilion that provides thermal comfort without the adverse effects of traditional air conditioning. KlimaKover’s low-energy design offers a sustainable alternative, which is potentially adaptable for existing buildings, ensuring resilience and comfort in low-income housing and other settings.