COTE: Nature-Based Heat Resilience

Join the AIA Atlanta Committee on the Environment’s (COTE®) April meeting, featuring a presentation titled “Nature-Based Heat Resilience: A Framework for Data-Driven Design.”

Extreme heat is a rising threat to public health and infrastructure as heat waves are projected to intensify in a warming climate. Rising temperatures driven by the urban heat island effect place cities at the forefront of responding to extreme heat and protect those at disproportionate risk of heat exposure.

To enhance resilience to extreme heat in cities, urban planners, designers, and public health practitioners are beginning to turn to data-driven decision support frameworks to design efficient, effective, and equitable response strategies.

The objectives of this session aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of how design influences heat exposure and resilience in the urban environment, and implications for landscape architecture and urban planning.

This presentation is available in-person and online.

Learning objectives

• Urban Heat Exposure Concepts and Trends
  Objective: Attendees will be able to explain heat exposure in the urban environment how heat effects have changed over time due to local and global climate change.
• Drivers of Urban Heat Islands and Microclimates
  Objective: Attendees will be able to characterize the drivers of urban heat island formation on a microclimatic and neighborhood scale.
• Influence of Heat on Public Health and Wellbeing
  Objective: Attendees will be able to describe the influence of heat on public health, well-being, and infrastructure and how these impacts can be minimized through design.
• Nature-Based Heat Mitigation Strategies and Design Scenario Modeling
  Objective: Attendees will discuss strategies to mitigate heat exposure through design and potential co-benefits of each strategy in the urban environment, with a focus on vegetative strategies. Strategies will be illustrated through design scenario modeling case studies from Urban Climate Lab research, quantifying the benefits of each strategy in multiple contexts.

Speaker

Dr. Evan Mallen
Urban Climate Lab
School of City & Regional Planning
Georgia Institute of Technology