USC | Cooling Time: Bringing climate justice to Skid Row. | Goal 2: Buildings and infrastructure that support human health and resilience.
PANDO DAYS ’21 AWARD WINNER: 1ST PLACE.
This project reimagines Skid Row’s two parks, San Julian and Gladys, as sites of relief from extreme heat events and unequal distribution of shade. According to LA County’s Department of Public Health, “heat causes more deaths in the U.S. each year than floods, storms, and lightning combined” and especially impacts the unhoused. Our pilot urban cooling project will engage the residents of Skid Row to propose possible environmental, spatial, and climate justice solutions. These may include increasing urban tree cover, cooling interventions and new and improved ways of enhancing access to hydration, hygiene and electricity.
Team: Alison B. Hirsch, professor USC Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism; Jared Edgar McKnight, professor; Zehra Baneen Rizvi; Andrea Binz; Lara Lebeiko; Eva Malis
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CITY OF LA CATEGORY: Shelter
How might we develop a space to serve the needs of the homeless inhabiting Skid Row, one of our most vulnerable communities in the County? Learn more.
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