2025–2028
Cooler streets
Mapping how trees, shade and water lower street temperatures in summer, block by block, with sensors placed by residents.
- Lead:
- Prof. Lars Eriksen
- Faculty:
- Humanities and Social Sciences
- Period:
- 2025–2028
- Status:
- Ongoing
(01) The project
The story so far
On a hot afternoon in July, two streets a few hundred metres apart can differ by six degrees. The difference is rarely the weather. It is trees, the colour of the pavement, a fountain, the width of the street and which way it faces.
Cooler streets measures that difference block by block. Residents host small temperature sensors on balconies, lamp posts and shop fronts, and the team maps readings every ten minutes across three summers.
The goal is practical: a planting and shading plan the city can act on, street by street, with the neighbourhoods that live there. Students from urban studies, data science and design work on the project each semester.
(Partners)
- City of Basel, urban planning office
- Basel residents' associations
- Swiss Federal Office for the Environment
