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Warburg Writes in ULI’s Scorched Report on Extreme Heat

This summer Sasaki Director of Sustainability Tamar Warburg contributed to Urban Land Institute’s in-depth report Scorched: Extreme Heat and Real Estate. The publication includes perspectives from designers, land use policymakers, climate scientists, and developers—and was released this month as a digital PDF. The executive summary focuses on the public health consequences of extreme heat, as well as the need for adaptability in public, built environments.

Warburg lends insights on data-drive heat mitigation strategies to the report. Her perspective demonstrates how software analysis and data collection help us test and propose different design solutions to optimize perceived human comfort. Sasaki’s interdisciplinary mindset lends a background to Warburg’s discussion of ecological site analysis, nuanced landscape design, and documentation methods that help build knowledge for future efforts.

Scorched also highlights Sasaki’s work on Dell Medical District at the University of Texas in a project call-out. The report describes how the team mitigates the heat of the environment by selecting plant species that can thrive in the school’s harsh summer climate. This design exemplifies the ecological site approach Warburg describes: “To design for yesterday’s temperature is not our only responsibility; we need to design for the future as well.”

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