Clerkenwell designer Andy Love has asked Islington schoolchildren for their ideas about coping with climate change.
By EC1 Echo
The challenge of climate change is often positioned as generational – in that the young will feel its effects more than the old. Which is one of several reasons why Andy Love from Farringdon-based organisation Shade the UK – which addresses how the UK’s communities can deal with rising temperatures – is running a design competition with Islington secondary schools about how to cope with rising temperatures.
The competition started last month and finishes this June. Love, an architect and sustainability consultant, is looking at how to make existing buildings fit for purpose. “When it comes to future climate change, the danger zones are care homes, social housing and schools,” he says. “We’ve already seen an increase in stress-related incidents and last summer’s heat is likely to be repeated.” Shade The UK’s design competition should come up with many ideas on how they think spaces can adapt, bearing in mind Islington Council’s ambition to be net carbon neutral by 2030. Love is encouraging the retrofitting of green infrastructure such as green roofs, sun-breakers, and canopies and is inviting comment from teachers, tenants organisations and care home managers as well as pupils. The competition is not just architectural, adds Love. “We invite all creative mediums from apps to art, design and technology; photography, even poetry, music and dance,” he says. “It’s to express what the schoolchildren feel about climate change and getting them to reimagine their spaces.”
The competition started on January 31, and between March and April Love will facilitate a workshop with each school followed by a big summer workshop. “We’re hoping in the next few weeks that we’ll start to get feedback on how children are responding,” says Love.
Visit shadetheuk.com/shade-islington
Visit islingtonsustainability.network
