This was a collaborative project funded by UCL Culture and Community Engagement. The aim was to explore the factors that affect how people feel in urban environments, focusing particularly on heat and urban micro-climates. As the Urban Heat Collective we designed and ran a series of urban heat walks in Hackney and Newham, in which we used alternative photographic processes (including cyanotype printing, near infra-red photography and thermal imaging) to explore the complex interaction between solar radiation and the built and natural environment, and invite participants to reflect on the benefits of green and blue spaces in cities and how we might actively respond to escalating climate change. Each walk took participants through five distinct urban micro-climates. We ran a workshop at the Great Get Together on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in May 2024, which attracted over 350 participants. The walks and workshops provided the basis for an exhibition at UCL Marshgate (3rd October 2024 to 17th January 2025), which we designed to follow the structure of the walks.
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