Urban Heat Chronicles is a community-based response to the growing crisis of urban heat—now recognized as the deadliest climate risk of our time. Selected for exhibition at the 2025 Venice Biennale Architettura under Carlo Ratti's theme Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, this collaborative project between MIT Future Heritage Lab and Italian partners T12 Lab, QuasiQuasi, and Project for People explores how cities and their inhabitants can adapt to escalating temperatures. The project unfolds through three interconnected elements that demonstrate how natural, artificial, and collective intelligence can converge to address climate challenges.
At the project's heart is a static installation by MIT Future Heritage Lab inspired by Venice's traditional laundry lines. Suspended between buildings in narrow alleys, this installation features upcycled, indigo-dyed textiles screen-printed with intricate patterns that showcase plant species' heat adaptation strategies. These botanical designs—developed through scientific research and workshops at MIT—transform overlooked urban spaces into shaded, connective tissue while visualizing ecological knowledge in artistic forms. This core installation is complemented by T12 Lab's Mobile Pavilion, a nomadic shade structure that follows the sun's path through Venice's campi, and by participatory workshops led by QuasiQuasi and Project for People, where visitors create cyanotypes that tell their own heat adaptation stories. Together, these elements reimagine how design can help communities navigate the climate crisis through memory, participation, and care, demonstrating that architecture must not only shelter but also connect, empower, and learn.
Learn more: https://urbanheatchronicles.com/
Installaition, participatory workshops
Commissioned for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. May 11 – November 23, 2025
Materials: 70 banners made from upcycled cotton fabrics, indigo dye, screen-printing
Dimensions: 41 x 120 cm / banner
Static installation by:
MIT Future Heritage Lab (FHL) Azra Aksamija (Lead) and Team: Merve Akdoğan, Christopher Hassan Allen, Ganit Goldstein, Kailin Jones, Lillian P. H. Kology, Penelope Phylactopoulos.
Supported by the MIT Artfinity Festival.
Mobile Pavilion by:
T12 Lab / Elisabetta Bianchessi
Participatory Workshops by:
QuasiQuasi / Alberto Wolfango Amedeo D’Asaro
Project for People / Anna Doneda
Coordinated by: Emma Greer