VIRTUAL Barcelona
Abstract
In our presentation, we argue that urban microclimates and their constitutive components should be considered as urban commons. By documenting the availability and absence of solar radiation, we reflect on the equitable distribution of sun and shade within the built environment. Recent studies suggest that viewing microclimates and their control as a collective rather than individual matter is necessary for climate adaptation (Roesler 2022, Roesler, Kobi, Stieger 2022). Therefore, thermal governance on an urban level becomes urgent. We will outline methodologies for conceiving a new type of thermal governance by exploring passive “solar access” and “shade equity”, as well as active cooling and heating infrastructures, as components of the urban microclimate. This will be done by comparing between two case studies of consolidated urban districts in two Central European cities projected to shift towards the subtropical climate that has until now been typical of the Southern European region (Rohat et al. 2017, Bastin et al 2019): Berlin and Vienna. Since urban density is a constitutive quality of cities, the challenge must be to adapt them in a way that will ensure densification and equitable solar and shade access at the same time. To this aim, we will document the solar access implications of current urban building regulations and juxtapose them with an ethnographic study of thermal practices in both case study sites. How can future cities be planned and designed in a way that takes microclimatic components under consideration and what could constitute an equitable governance of microclimates as commons?
Noa Levin is a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy and theory of architecture and the environment at the Università della Svizzera italiana, and an associated researcher at Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin. Her postdoctoral project focuses on “Thermal Communities in Times of Climate Crisis”. Her wider research interests include the philosophy and history of science and environmental media theory. Noa obtained her PhD from the CRMEP at Kingston University, London. A monograph based on her dissertation, Infinite Mirrors: Benjamin, Deleuze and the Baroque, is forthcoming at Bloomsbury Publishing.
Julian Raffetseder is an architect and PhD researcher at the USI – Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland. In his dissertation project he investigates the agency of urban architecture in the climate adaptation of a “Subtropical Vienna”. Before joining the Accademia, he was university assistant at TU Graz, Austria and worked for architectural practices in Vienna, Hamburg, and London. Besides his PhD research, Julian is involved in architectural design competitions as a consultant for urban climate design. He holds a BArch degree from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and a MArch degree from the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Sascha Roesler (Dr. sc. ETH) is an architect and theorist, working at the intersection of architecture, ethnography, and science and technology studies. He is the Associate Professor for Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environments at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland (Università della Svizzera Italiana). Between 2013 and 2015, Roesler was a senior researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory (Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability), and between 2015 and 2021, had the position of Swiss National Science Foundation Professor for Architecture and Theory, leading a research group on “Architecture and Urban Climates.”
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Monday 15th July, 2024