Introduction to the Temperature Project
At the beginning of this year, we started our Temperature Myth project. Created with the same intention as a knitted temperature blanket, for every day of 2023, we track the high temperatures here in Albuquerque, visualize those numbers through specific colors, and will fabricate the results into one of our felt wall panels called Myth. Nature is a constant source of inspiration in our designs, and we love illustrations that clearly, yet aesthetically display scientific data, such as geologic charts or spectrometry. Our Myth Panel was inspired by geological prints that depict the layers of the earth, such as this late 19th-century print by Levi Walter Yaggy. The striations of the design seemed like the perfect way to render our Temperature Project in felt!
Why these colors?
Some people have asked us questions such as “Why aren’t the hottest temperatures red?” or “Are the highs of the day really the best representation of the weather?”—All great questions we are excited to answer! Albuquerque has a desert climate, meaning the temperatures vary greatly between night and day. We thought using the daily average temperature would not accurately reflect what we experience. We picked our color ranges intentionally to reflect the effects of temperature on nature, cool tones for winter weather, bright and vibrant in ranges conducive for growing, white at the turning point, and a range of grays to represent the effects of extreme heat on plant life, very sparse and sterile feeling.
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Blues for temperatures around and under freezing
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Greens for spring-like temperatures
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Golden yellows for warm weather
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White as the turning point of the warm to hot
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Grays and muted ashy colors to represent the high heats
Exploring Climate Change in many ways in 2023
Over this year, we are making a more conscious effort to be educated, thoughtful, and proactive toward sustainability, and part of this effort is our Temperature Myth project. Other aspects of this work include monthly internal sustainability meetings with staff and a quarterly meetup of local manufacturers, makers, designers, and others to foster mutual learning, exchange ideas, and engage in collaborative efforts—both big and small— to promote sustainability within organizations and across the wider communities of Albuquerque and New Mexico.
We’re excited to complete the second half of this temperature project, to be able to look back at the entire year and see what patterns and observations we can recognize in our completed Myth Panel. It certainly seems like it will be a hot summer; we’ve already had a streak of 100+ days in the first two weeks of July. You can follow along more closely on our Instagram, we make check-in videos every two weeks.