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When you’re thinking about urban infrastructure, the first things that come to mind are probably related to transportation, utilities, communications and public services.

Shade is probably not on that list. But if you’re a mile closer to the sun, as Denver is, it should be, according to an expert in environmental health and urban greenness.

“As the climate changes, many cities have increased their focus on studying sun exposure,” said Sara Tabatabaie, an assistant teaching professor of environmental design. “But they’re doing so mainly from a heat mitigation standpoint, and not necessarily for skin cancer prevention.”

Earlier this year, Tabatabaie received a third grant to continue studying how Denver, and other cities, can engage in sun safety planning and shade design to make the outdoors a less hazardous place for your skin. Worldwide, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer; in Colorado, it is a rising problem, per the National Cancer Institute.

Creating novel guidelines

It’s such a novel consideration for designers and public health officials that Tabatabaie’s work really had to start at the beginning. In the early phases of this project—a partnership between the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Community Engagement, Design and Research Center—she developed an intensive methodology to assess ultraviolet exposure in different urban environments, or typologies. From there, she proposed design guidelines—customized for different public space typologies—to help neighborhoods hit appropriate sun safety thresholds.

“This work incorporates lived experiences of shade and place into real design guidelines,” she said. To do so effectively, she and student researchers from CEDaR completed extensive surveys—audits, observation, environmental modeling and parametric simulation—to establish design guidelines that could improve UV safety for each typology as the sun moves through the sky during the day.

The current phase of the project is translating her evidence-based findings into actionable strategies that can guide policy and transform neighborhoods for sun safety. Tabatabaie hopes that, through this work, CDPHE can craft stronger urban forestry initiatives, improve streetscape requirements and invest in neighborhoods that lack sun protection.

“In this next phase, I’ll be investigating the institutional and political pathways for shade interventions, so we understand how to integrate these findings into urban policies, regulatory codes and planning frameworks,” she said.

She also plans to perform a cost-benefit analysis of shade.

“We want to be able to share the cost of implementing shade against the health benefits that shade offers to residents,” she said. “We know cost will be an important consideration for helping people understand the value of introducing shade into these typologies.”

Jota Samper

In the first phase of the project, the team—Tabatabaie; Jota Samper, associate professor and co-director of CEDaR; and a team of environmental design students—surveyed six different neighborhoods throughout the city to assess shade and sun risk. The orientation of streets, walkability and sidewalk types were shown to directly affect the sun risk index; the survey also revealed neighborhoods with a higher percentage of children provided limited shade—problematic, as children are more susceptible to sun damage than adults.

“What I found fascinating about Sara is that she took tools that are used in other fields”—like Rhino, a versatile 3D modeling tool, and related applications like Grasshopper and Ladybug—“and applied them to her interest in research,” Samper said. “It was amazing to see how she implemented them not just to measure sun exposure, but to show how different modalities of design could have different impacts, and help us visualize and understand that in a more complex way.”

The work may seem simple on its face, but there are a number of quirks that become apparent the more you look at shade. Cover from trees, for instance, is variable on windy days and mostly disappears in the winter. Meanwhile, surfaces designed to reflect sunlight, and protect from heat, may reflect those UV rays back at people.

“Until now, shade thresholds have not been consistently defined across all typologies, which has made it more difficult to design sun-safe places,” Tabatabaie said.

All this is happening against the backdrop of cities embracing the outdoors and encouraging residents to spend time outside by investing in parks, multiuse trails and micromobility options. But based on average UV levels in Denver, more than 20 minutes of direct sun exposure is not recommended, especially for fair-skinned people.

Balancing more time outdoors with more awareness of sun risk is something Tabatabaie takes seriously in her work.

“Community engagement, and using people’s lived experience, is so important in the design process. Because if people don’t believe in the design, they won’t use it,” she said. “We can’t just design something that looks great. We have to observe how people behave and interact with a design to ensure we’re creating something people want to use.”

Student research impact

That’s a lesson she imparted to the students working alongside her on the project. Gabby Rodriguez, a senior majoring in landscape architecture, studied urban trail systems to help guide recommendations for that typology.

“Looking at the climate we live in today demonstrates that smart landscape architecture projects are more needed than ever—especially at a time when everything is changing so rapidly,” said Rodriguez, who hopes to do more public-oriented projects after graduating this spring. “But the challenging part is definitely putting the scientific processes and methodologies into terms that the general public can understand, so you can convey that importance to people.”

The work is especially important to Rodriguez, who—like many native Coloradans—never turns down an opportunity to be outdoors.

“It’s exciting to see a project like this come to the surface,” she said. “I loved the opportunity to work with Sara, who is one of the most intelligent people I’ve known and is focused on cultivating a good space to bring design solutions for important problems to light.”

Tabatabaie’s gift for encouraging her students to become passionate about these issues speaks to her teaching ability, Samper said. ��

“The rigor Sara brings to her research really rubs off on her students,” he said. “The students understood the stakes were high, that this was a real client with a serious issue, and that their research was really going to impact policy in Colorado. That elevated the whole output of the students, which was really wonderful.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.