Atmospheric Commons

Airborne Ecologies in Motion

Craig Douglas, GSD, Harvard University
Justin Booz, ETH Zurich
Max Piana, GSD, Harvard University

American Academy in Rome · 30 March – 4 July 2026

Atmospheric Commons: Airborne Ecologies in Motion extends the concerns of Flight Paths by tracing the invisible medium through which every migration, adaptation, and collision between species unfolds in the air. If the parakeet marks the transformation of Rome's ecological and cultural horizons, air constitutes the atmospheric field that sustains its flight, its sound, and its survival. The project reimagines the city as an aerographic landscape, a living infrastructure of turbulence, temperature, humidity, and particulate matter that links birds, humans, and climates within a single breathing metabolism.

American Academy in Rome courtyard at night

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Trees, Air and Urban Heat Island

Tree Transpiration

Atmospheric Commons is a network of 47 sensors spread across the grounds of the American Academy Rome. The sensors continuously measure air temperature and humidity, the relative heat index, soil moisture, and the sap flow of one of the courtyard Cypress trees.

The project engages with the Matter of Air and Flight Paths, both of which operate within what could be called ecologies of movement, networks of flux, adaptation, and interspecies negotiation that redefine what it means to inhabit and design within the urban atmosphere of the city.

While Flight Paths uses the parakeet's migration to explore the transformation of urban habitats, governance, and climate adaptation, Atmospheric Commons traces air itself as the medium through which these transformations unfold. If the parakeet reveals the city's changing ecologies, this work reveals the aerographic infrastructure that makes such ecologies possible, the invisible gradients, pressures, and flows that carry heat, scent, sound, and particulate matter across the city.

The work demonstrates that trees are not passive background elements but active climatic infrastructures capable of reconfiguring urban thermal and chemical dynamics. Through transpiration, shading, and pollutant absorption, they generate microclimatic cooling fields that mitigate the urban heat island effect while improving air quality and human comfort. By deploying sensor networks that make these processes perceivable, the project reveals the city as a living laboratory a responsive ecosystem where the boundaries between natural and artificial, biological and technological, are continuously negotiated.

As a prototype for climate-responsive urban design, it reframes trees as operative design media that bridge ecological and computational intelligence. It suggests that the future of climate adaptation lies not solely in mechanical mitigation, but in cultivating atmospheric infrastructures of cooling forests, vegetated corridors, and sensor-augmented landscapes that regenerate the urban atmosphere as a shared, living commons.

Courtyard Sensor

Live · Updates every 15 seconds

In the courtyard, the atmospheric and sap flow data is conveyed in real-time with LED actuators that update every 15 seconds. Temperature is conveyed through a range of LED colours that shift from blue (cold) through green (optimal comfort between 18–23°C), to red (hot). Humidity is communicated through a range of LED colours that shift from red (dry), through green (optimal 30–50% humidity), to blue (humid). The relative heat index, or 'apparent temperature' measures how hot it feels to the living body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. The sap flow of the cypress tree is communicated by a green light that moves with a speed relative to the flow of sap in the tree – please note that sap flow is related to photosynthesis and changes with the temperature and sunlight.

Live LED Display

Temperature

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Humidity

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Heat Index

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Sap Flow

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Sensor Diagram

Sensor Data Map

Live sensor data

Sensor Location Plan – American Academy in Rome

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Sensor Readings

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Street

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Front Garden

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Building Terrace

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Courtyard

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Rear Garden

Air Temperature · Air Humidity · Data: Decentlab · Auto-refresh 60s

Sensor Data Graph

Live · From 29 March 2026

Temperature (°C) over Time

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Humidity (%) over Time

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Atmospheric Commons · American Academy in Rome · 2026