Miami, Florida

How can you put climate change on public display?

An inhabitable, monolithic cube of ice sits in the heat of the Miami sun. As heat penetrates the volume, fresh meltwater flows down its sides and registers its volume as pools form in a gently sloped topographic catch basin. As the basin fills with icy water, occupational boundaries are redrawn and the dynamic thermal gradient activates the surrounding space as a fluid site. A uniquely ephemeral experience that changes literally by the moment, the resulting landscape is a playful environment for socializing shaped by puddles, paths, and cool breezes

Eventually, the volume of meltwater breaches the basin’s edges and overflows into the public realm. At this point, the value of fresh water as resource and commodity is rendered explicit. As sea level rises globally, national and territorial freshwater reserves continue to fall. Local Cooling is positioned between these current events: it is meant to serve not as a parable of climate change, but to draw public attention to water’s importance and imminent scarcity.

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