Socioplastics 11868 A Cool Place Is Not Yet a Refuge
Thermal relief depends on access, duration, maintenance and permission as well as temperature. CoolingSanctuary names a place where cooling becomes a usable public and ecological provision: a shaded courtyard, library, water source or collectively maintained shelter. Its value depends on whether people can reach it, remain there and use it without prohibitive demands. During extreme heat, an air-conditioned commercial interior may offer measurable cooling while requiring payment or restricting occupation. A shaded public arcade may provide less controlled relief yet remain open without purchase. Comparing the two requires more than recording temperature. Opening hours, seating, water, shade, safety, transport and accepted forms of presence shape whether either space functions as a refuge. Emanuele Coccia’s work on plant life foregrounds the shared atmosphere through which life is sustained. Jennifer Gabrys studies environmental sensing and the practices through which climate becomes measurable. Robin Wall Kimmerer attends to reciprocal relations among people and living systems, while Maria Kaika examines the urban infrastructures that organise flows of nature and resources. Their different approaches connect atmospheric conditions with systems of care, measurement and access. A municipality could map cool spaces alongside temperature readings, opening times, routes, maintenance responsibilities and user experience. The map would show how relief varies through the day and across neighbourhoods, and which spaces are available to people who need them most. CoolingSanctuary frames thermal refuge as a relation between climate, public access and ongoing care. A cool location becomes meaningful when the conditions for staying are secured.
REFERENCES
Coccia, E. (2019) The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture. Cambridge: Polity.
Gabrys, J. (2016) Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kimmerer, R.W. (2013) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.
Kaika, M. (2005) City of Flows: Modernity, Nature, and the City. New York: Routledge.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html