An intervention policy that makes urban heat visible, taxes excessive thermal contributors, and rewards regenerative cooling actions.

Heat challenge addressed: The ‘Urban Heat Island’ effect caused by the loss of wetlands to concrete and the lack of accountability for high-rise thermal emissions.

The community/ecosystem it impacts: The Colombo wetland city ecosystem, commercial building owners, urban developers, and individual citizens.

The prototype emerged through a futures process that worked with urban heat signals, unpacked their direct and indirect consequences, and used world-building to explore how these shifts could reorganise everyday life, access, and survival in the city.

Colombo is officially recognized as a “Wetland City,” yet its marshes and paddy fields are being rapidly replaced by concrete. This transformation is erasing the city’s natural sponges ecosystems As these wetlands disappear. Colombo loses one of its most effective passive cooling mechanisms. Existing literature clearly demonstrates a direct correlation between wetland degradation and rising local temperatures. However, the team identified a critical gap in heat-related health and environmental data in Sri Lanka that remains severely limited and fragmented. This lack of data renders the impacts of urban heat largely invisible. 

The prototype responds to two urgent signals on the physical disappearance of wetlands and the profound absence of health and environmental heat data. By making the thermal impact of specific buildings visible and measurable, it aims to bridge this gap and provide a foundation for more informed climate-responsive urban development.

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A digital platform and interactive holograph system called Heat Lens that visualizes heat levels in real-time, holding large contributors accountable while incentivizing cooling.

How it works: The platform tracks heat signatures across the city, specifically identifying hotspots where wetlands have been replaced by concrete. It applies a "Heat Tax" to buildings exceeding healthy thresholds and a "Reward Points" system for cooling actions.

Key features:

• Real-time Heat Tracking: Maps buildings and the cooling effects of remaining wetlands.

• Heat Tax Regulation: Flags commercial or high-rise buildings that exceed thermal thresholds, encouraging better architectural design rather than mere punishment.

• Incentive Engine: Users earn points and badges for planting trees, improving ventilation, or creating green patches.

• Biodiversity Education: Informs users about local flora and fauna that thrive in restored wetlands, linking climate action to biodiversity.

• Public Interactive Holograph: A public-facing visualizer that shows which companies and buildings are contributing most to the city's heat.

Who uses it: City regulators for policy enforcement, businesses for design optimization, and citizens for climate action rewards.