Supported by a two-year design grant from the National Science Foundation, the Global Center for Household Energy and Thermal Resilience (HEaTR) aims to foster community-driven solutions to the problem of climate vulnerability, focused on housing and domestic space.

HEaTR was seeded by a grant from Cornell Global Hubs and brings together scholars and staff from Cornell’s Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Buffalo Co-Lab. The project also entails a partnership with four international institutions: Ashoka University, the University of Glasgow, the University of Ghana, and the National University of Singapore.

From extremes of heat and cold to natural disasters, many of the most glaring health, economic, and social effects of climate change are experienced in and reflected through housing, yet the design expertise of those who live in climate-vulnerable communities has rarely been recognized.

Instead of privileging technological solutions engineered in the Global North and applied to the Global South, HEaTR’s approach foregrounds the perspectives, idioms, materials, and socioeconomic realities of those whose homes and communities are on the front lines of climate crisis. Through collaborative, interdisciplinary research, HEaTR aims to become a resource for learning about and sharing solutions to thermal design challenges, from low-cost cooling and insulation using locally-sourced materials, to grassroots heat and cold action plans that leverage social networks to protect the most vulnerable.