PlanTable, 2025

At a time when cities like Boston face intensifying summer heat and widening environmental disparities, PlanTable offers a living, participatory response—merging ecology, culture, and community in one dynamic space. This multidisciplinary project, presented in partnership with Pao Arts Center, emerges from a deep collaboration between artists, designers, community advocates, and climate thinkers.  Conceived as a modular, scalable structure, PlanTable integrates trees and pollinator-friendly plants, functioning as a plug-in biodiversity node within the city. It provides essential refuge not only for people but also for pollinators, whose populations are increasingly threatened by rising temperatures and habitat loss. The installation responds directly to Chinatown’s specific climate challenges as Boston’s hottest neighborhood, with limited tree canopy and public green space. Featuring 16 trees and a rich palette of perennial plants designed to attract pollinators, PlanTable is both temporary and enduring. When the installation concludes, all vegetation will be gifted to community members, allowing its ecological and social legacy to continue. At the core of PlanTable is a long communal table, doubling as a climate timeline that charts rising global temperatures since 1870—the year Boston’s Chinatown was founded. Highlighted bars mark the years when temperatures exceeded historical averages, revealing an accelerating trend that mirrors the community’s urgent calls for climate justice.