Cooling Center Experience @ DRK Wohlfahrtskongress 2022
Once every 4 years, the German Red Cross gets together to scope out the future of welfare activities with their organization. Together with Urban Heat Studio and Juli Sikorska we build a cooling center as an immersive experience to make participants aware of the effects of heatwaves in urban environments…and how the German Red Cross can help.
Show, don’t tell
The cooling center was a playful intervention far off the character of the event to stand out and raise interests.
We build this experience on the work of Urban Heat Studio. We designed a cooling center tent around the fictitious organisation Hitzehilfswerk to raise awareness for the need of cities in future heat waves. It came fully equipped with field beds, charging stations, board games, volunteer shift plan, air humidifier, emergency sets, home kits, instructions and of course: plenty of water.
Guerilla marketing
Bringing the experience to life…and to the participants of the congress.
We put up posters that showed the way to our cooling center tent all around the congress. Moreover, Hitzehilfswerk volunteers in their working uniformes were touring the campus, mingling at the lunch buffet and participated in workshops and sessions. Their swag sparked conversations and planted thought seeds about future volunteering fields of action. It was so convincing that we had to tell people that this is actually a fiction — until now.
