The CLISHE project responds to key challenges of contemporary cities: climate change, social inequalities, and transforming forms of urban life. Across Europe, climate shelters have long served as protective spaces during heatwaves, cold spells, or floods; CLISHE expands this concept and reinterprets shelters as “urban laboratories” – places where communities can test new practices of inclusion, innovation, and sustainability. The project builds on the strong pedagogical and research tradition of the IUAV University of Venice and applies it to diverse, dispersed, peri-urban, and seasonal urban contexts.
At the core of CLISHE lies the idea that climate shelters are not merely protective infrastructure, but spaces that can evolve into new community hubs – accessible, open, and supportive environments where people meet, collaborate, and build resilience to climatic and social pressures. For this reason, the project pays special attention to areas that are often overlooked – peripheral, seasonal, and transitional territories, where needs are significant and investment is limited.
The partnership includes:
– The Municipality of Lignano Sabbiadoro, lead partner, facing pronounced seasonal pressures and the needs of a highly dynamic local population,
– Small Venetian centers in collaboration with the IUAV University of Venice and the volunteer-support organisation CSV Venice, where the project addresses issues of social vulnerability and service accessibility,
– An area of Ljubljana with a high concentration of healthcare and institutional activities, particularly exposed to environmental pressures due to vulnerable user groups and spatial constraints, involving Prostorož Cultural Association (Kulturno društvo Prostorož) and Primorska Technology Park (Primorski tehnološki park).
CLISHE conceives the climate shelter as hybrid infrastructure – a space that improves microclimatic conditions, enables social interaction, and creates opportunities for cultural and educational activities. Through this approach, the project integrates environmental goals, social inclusion, and community strengthening.
The project brings benefits on multiple levels. Locally, it establishes new, accessible climate shelters in environments experiencing significant climatic pressures and social vulnerabilities. At the cross-border level, cooperation between Italy and Slovenia enables the development of shared approaches to the design, management, and integration of climate shelters, as well as mutual learning on how different urban environments can effectively respond to heat stress and the needs of their communities.
CLISHE thus develops models that can inspire contemporary urban policies in Italy and Slovenia. It presents the climate shelter as a protective, cultural, and social space, and as a symbol of a new European urban culture based on inclusion, sustainable transformation, and the strengthening of the climatic and social resilience of cities.
