MDes Student Awards 2024
Social Justice & Practice Award

Illegal acts of kindness.

INTRODUCTION

As climate change intensifies, cities grow hotter and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect exacerbates inequities in our built environments. Traditional top-down solutions often fail to engage those most impacted, leaving communities disempowered. This thesis reimagines UHI mitigation as an act of creativity, activism, and environmental justice. It introduces an ecosystem of guerrilla-style interventions: sprayable plant graffiti that cools building surfaces, an awareness campaign to inspire action, and a mapping platform to track plant health. The project empowers individuals to reclaim urban spaces and confront the climate crisis from the ground up. We hope that this work sparks hope for a future where grassroots interventions reshape our cities, fostering resilience and collective action in the face of climate change.

How might we encourage communities to combat the Urban Heat Island effect and advance environmental justice through creative action?

Final Presentation

Read the final written thesis here.