Belinda Tato, “Landscapes for Empathy, Empathy for Landscapes: Designing Atmospheres for Social Interaction

Wednesday, November 13

12:30 - 1:30pm

Frances Loeb Library Lobby

Extreme heat due to climate change endangers the comfort of outdoor public spaces, making them unusable in many cities. This exacerbates the existing park equity gap, a phenomenon where less affluent communities tend to have less access to biodiverse, green public spaces.

Belinda Tato explores innovative solutions to ensure public spaces remain climatically comfortable, accessible, functional and, above all, equitable. By enhancing climatic comfort and enabling community participation, design becomes a powerful tool for fostering empathy, not only by improving relationships among people but also by deepening connections between humans, other living beings and the natural environment.

Tato will illustrate these concepts through her studio Ecosistema Urbano’s work: a series of large-scale landscape and urban interventions in cities across the globe as well as experimental plug-in infrastructures that combat extreme heat at the local level.