2023-ongoing
Funding agency: Israel Science Foundation
Research leader: Or Aleksandrowicz
Researcher: Omri Shafer-Raviv
Urban overheating is becoming a major global concern in light of climate change; yet ongoing, consistent integration of climatic considerations into everyday urban planning and design is still an accidental rarity. This discrepancy is nothing new to modern planning, indicating a persistent, fundamental failure that unless thoroughly examined in retrospect is bound to replicate itself. Nevertheless, systematic historical evidence on climatic considerations in urban planning and their impact on urban climates is still virtually non-existent.
The main objective of the project is to provide an unprecedentedly broad and holistic historical account of the interdependence of modern planning of urban settlements, scientific knowledge, and urban climates. It will ask in what sense certain historical urban configurations of the last century were more adapted to climate than others, and what impact scientists and planners had on the climates of these urban environments. Since urban climates are evaluated using quantitative climatic indicators, we cannot overlook them if we want to write histories that genuinely make sense of the climates of cities. Therefore, the project suggests an innovative way of writing histories of urban climates by integrating quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.
The project will trace the history of urban planning concepts and ideas employed in a group of modern metropolitan areas for a period of a century, offer high-resolution quantitative analyses of historical urban climates of the same locations and period, explore the historical development of the science of urban climatology during the same period, and map the changing attitudes towards climatic planning and design among public and professional circles. In the end, it will offer new insights into the historical circumstances and contexts that promoted or impeded the realization of modern urban planning and design schemes consisting of significant heat mitigation qualities.