URBAN RIGHT TO SHADE ORDINANCE (DRETUMB)

[ORIGINAL EN CATALÀ] [TRADUCCIÓN AL ESPAÑOL]

PROTOCOL: DISPUTATIONS IN THE SHADE

In our itinerant spatial activations, the Department of Umbrology aims to establish protective shades to map, describe, and contest territorial grievances (demographic shifts; thermal comfort, accessibility, and the right to green spaces; housing conditions; opacity and surveillance, etc.) through ephemeral interventions intended for public visibility, awareness, and the socio-ecological protection of contested sites.

We seek to temporarily occupy these shaded areas not only as sites of fleeting protection, but as true urban parliaments: nomadic architectures designed to accommodate diverse living beings and their respective concerns; spaces to deliberate upon our right to shade, driving toward climate sovereignty and grassroots self-protection protocols.

Consequently, we call for the shading of public spaces to serve as democratic platforms, where shadows accommodate a plurality of urban definitions for the city’s various living beings: that is, as spaces for multispecies relations intended to suspend the solar order of traditional urban planning. We designate these activities as disputations in the shade.

It is our intent that these disputations—drawing inspiration from the Parlement de Loire and its continuation in the internationale des rivières et autres éléments de la nature, or the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes—act as vehicles for a popular inventive statecraft or, in other words, serve the public imagination in responding to the urban challenges of the ongoing climatic mutation.

Within these disputations in the shade, we hereby open for public comment this draft Urban Right to Shade Ordinance (DRETUMB), conceived as an instrument to reclaim our right as holobionts to devise new forms of self-protection, transcending the solar regime of currently instituted urbanism.

We welcome all submissions to dispute, enrich, expand, specify, amend, and adopt this text as your own!

PUBLIC CALL FOR COMMENT: URBAN RIGHT TO SHADE ORDINANCE (DRETUMB)

(Version 1.0, Summer 2026 – This is a true and accurate translation of the original ordinance drafted in Catalan. For all legal purposes, the Catalan original text shall be consulted as the sole authentic and official version)

PREAMBLE

WHEREAS, human industrial activity has established a new climatic regime marked by an intensification of solar radiation and urban heat island effects that directly threaten the core habitability of our habitats;

WHEREAS, modern urban design—reliant on hard infrastructure, reflective surfaces, and materials with high thermal inertia—operates as a vector for socio-ecological displacement;

WHEREAS, habitability is not an exclusive attribute of human beings, but rather of the interconnected web of life, which must be defended as a fundamental political condition;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED that this Ordinance shall stand as a regulatory framework protecting urban habitability, understood as a right of holobionts to remain within an urban territory without atmospheric conditions nullifying their biological viability, in all their uniqueness: respecting the plurality of ways in which the habitability of each living being manifests, while establishing the necessary diplomatic mechanisms to resolve potential frictions or conflicting interests within multispecies relations.

Shade is hereby defined as a dynamic common good: a nomadic atmospheric flow resulting from the interception of solar radiation, constituting the minimal and essential infrastructure required to maintain the city within a habitable thermal threshold.

Inspired by the Habitability Principle outlined by Baptiste Morizot and Laurent Neyret, the theses on Ecological Redirection by the Origens Medialab, the explorations of political biotic communities within the Zoöp Model, and the urban climate policy guidelines Decoding Comfort, the Department of Umbrology hereby proclaims the seasonal right to urban shade and vindicates penumbra and opacity (as conceptualized by Édouard Glissant) as a climate shelter for holobionts. Accordingly, pursuant to its Guide: The City of Shades, urban shade is established as a fundamental protection for all living bodies, ensuring they are not left fully exposed and vulnerable to solar irradiation.

To this end, shade is guaranteed as an architecture of popular climate sovereignty, enabling the self-protection of holobionts and the continuity of life in times of climatic mutation, as well as the exploration of new forms of urban habitability.

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TITLE I: FOUNDATIONS AND SUBJECTS OF THE RIGHT
  • Section 1. Definition of Shade: Shade is recognized as a dynamic common good. It constitutes, concurrently, the guarantee of a Right to Opacity: the right of every holobiont not to be rendered fully transparent, measurable, or monitored by the structures of urban thermopower. Shade is the sanctuary of non-translatable uniqueness.
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  • Section 2. The Holobiont as a Subject of Law: This Ordinance extends protection to biotic communities (defined as not only humans but the web of relationships between microbiomes, fauna, and flora, alongside the abiotic elements critical to their survival), recognizing that their habitability depends upon access to thermal refuge and solar concealment.
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TITLE II: URBAN REST
  • Section 3. Rest Zones: During periods of radiant heat alerts and extreme weather, all shaded areas shall be legally recognized as Rest Zones. This designation shall entail the following:
    • 3.1. The right to the communal use of private porches, awnings, and building eaves is hereby encouraged and supported.
    • 3.2. An Umbrological Hospitality Easement (UHE) is hereby established across all public rights-of-way. The UHE imposes a legal obligation upon any structure, wall, or built element (whether publicly or privately owned) to cede the use of the shade it casts upon the ground or adjacent space for the shelter of holobionts. This easement shall be automatic, free of charge, and non-negotiable during hours of high solar irradiation. Recognizing the dynamic properties of this atmospheric flow, the easement shall not attach to a fixed geographic coordinate, but shall shift continuously with the projection of the shadow footprint throughout the day.
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  • Section 4. The Right to Rest in Public Space: Any municipal bans, ordinances, or regulations restricting or prohibiting resting in public spaces are hereby suspended within shaded areas. Horizontal rest is recognized as a physiological survival necessity for holobionts. The City shall not compel continuous movement or urban circulation under conditions of acute thermal stress.
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TITLE III: SOLAR PROTECTION INFRASTRUCTURES
  • Section 5. Solar Protection Factor (SPF): The City, as a unified entity, shall actively contribute to the SPF of every neighborhood:
    • 5.1. Buildings shall incorporate eaves, awnings, and pergolas or, failing that, guarantee their temporary deployment. Mirrored or highly reflective glass facades that project solar radiation and invasive glare into common rest spaces are strictly prohibited.
    • 5.2. Umbrophilic Continuity Guarantee (UCG): The City shall guarantee an uninterrupted network of shade across all public spaces, achieved through green or artificial infrastructures with all necessary structural overlaps. No holobiont shall be compelled to endure direct, unshaded solar exposure for a duration exceeding 5 minutes to complete any essential urban commute.
    • 5.3. Seasonal Adaptation: Traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, and other urban signage systems shall be calibrated to minimize the solar exposure time of living beings. The mapping and signage of alternative climate itineraries shall be mandatory.
    • 5.4. Every neighborhood shall guarantee that 50% of its ground surface is kept cool and permeable. Shaded areas must allow bodies to rest in direct contact with the earth or with materials featuring low thermal inertia that do not disrupt the thermoregulation of holobionts.
    • 5.5. Due consideration shall be given to the heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and effusivity (heat transfer rate) of materials; consequently, the use of organic materials (wood, textiles, unpaved earth) that do not retain burning temperatures shall be prioritized in public spaces over concrete, metal, glass, and stone.
    • 5.6. Given the interplay between thermal and chromatic factors (light colours reflect radiation but cause visual blindness/glare; dark colours absorb and subsequently emit high heat), urban planning authorities are directed to integrate color mechanics into public space design.
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  • Section 6. Shadow Tax:
    • 6.1. Any form of hoarding, enclosure, or privatization of shaded spaces—irrespective of public or private title—as well as their appropriation for commercial or exclusionary purposes (including, but not limited to, outdoor dining terraces, restricted institutional enclosures, or infrastructures that impede, limit, or condition free public access to climate self-protection) shall be immediately subject to taxation as follows:
      • 6.1.1. A shadow tax equivalent to 15% of the monthly gross turnover generated by any economic activity operating within the footprint of said shadow projection, applicable to commercial establishments.
      • 6.1.2. A shadow tax assessed at €500 per square meter of enclosed or restricted shaded area, payable monthly, applicable to buildings, facilities, or premises of an institutional or public nature.
    • 6.2. All revenues derived from this tax shall be transferred directly to the Neighborhood Umbrological Assemblies (ASUB) of the affected district, pursuant to Title V of this Ordinance. The ASUB shall hold exclusive jurisdiction over the management, allocation, and auditing of these funds to finance local projects of subtractive urbanism and urban ecological redirection.
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TITLE IV: CLIMATE SELF-PROTECTION AND TEMPORARY OCCUPATION OF SPACE
  • Section 7. Right to Midday Truce: During the peak hours of the day throughout the summer months, the city shall transition into a slow metabolic state. Shaded areas shall be respected as shelters for shared rest and penumbra. All municipal or commercial activities that disrupt such refuge are suspended.
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  • Section 8. Self-Protection and Transitory Space Occupation License:
    • 8.1. A universal, standing permit is hereby granted to install emergency umbrological infrastructures, exempt from aesthetic censorship or formal municipal application processes. The climate self-protection of holobionts shall take legal precedence over the visual or architectural branding of the city, as well as any decorative, monumental or heritage preservation criteria. Traffic and pedestrian safety conflicts shall be adjudicated on an individual basis.
    • 8.2. Holobionts retain the right to move their bodies and personal property in alignment with moving shadows, and may occupy any public space that provides thermal refuge. The right to remain unobserved and free from data collection or tracking within shaded areas is guaranteed.
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  • Section 9. Right to Work Suspension: The suspension of any outdoor labour or work activity under direct sunlight is authorized whenever access to adequate shade cannot be guaranteed, without penalty, loss of wages, or disciplinary retaliation.
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TITLE V: FUTURE DEPLOYMENT OF AN URBAN ECOLOGICAL REDIRECTION PLAN
  • Section 10. Public Participation and Ecological Redirection Process: To ensure the systematic ecological redirection of municipal infrastructure—conceived not as an abrupt abandonment or a clean slate strategy, but as the politicized, deliberate, and managed phase-out of modern solar urbanism—the City shall establish Neighborhood Umbrological Assemblies (ASUB) as co-decision, design, and governance bodies for infrastructure withdrawal. These ASUBs shall serve as the competent deliberative authorities to determine which infrastructures, technical systems, or urban utilities tied to the solar regime shall be dismantled, subjecting the fate of the city’s obsolete or climate-harmful assets to public dispute.
    • 10.1. The Assemblies shall map existing Thermal Sacrifice Zones (TSZ) to initiate their democratic dismantling. This subtractive urbanism shall be executed through gradual withdrawal protocols (depaving, dismantling polluting utility flows, planting urban forestry and greenery, or executing insurgent irrigation networks) specifically designed to monitor, mitigate, and repair any metabolic, socio-economic, or supply chain disruptions that the infrastructure’s deactivation might impose on the local community.
    • 10.2. The ASUBs shall further be charged with identifying and managing the urban negative commons that emerge during their assessments.
      • 10.2.1. Negative commons are defined as the remnants of fossil-fuel urbanism, environmental liabilities, persistent toxicities, structural heat islands, obsolete infrastructures of the modern solar regime, or hostile architecture fixtures installed to exclude living beings from shaded areas. Far from dissolving upon closure or dismantling, these entities persist within the territory as inherited material burdens. Given their irreversible or long-lasting nature, they cannot be treated as mere waste to be eliminated or externalized, but must be managed as hazardous realities requiring long-term collective responsibility, care, and public governance by the community.
      • 10.2.2. The democratic dismantling process shall formally acknowledge these burdens, which shall be placed under a regime of institutional co-responsibility and popular custody. The ASUBs, in coordination with the Department of Umbrology, shall draft the necessary containment, remediation, and community surveillance protocols to govern the metabolic impacts of these negative commons during and after their deactivation.
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  • Section 11. Interspecies Decision-Making Framework: The ASUBs shall convene the various living entities of a given locality and shall prioritize consensus-based decision-making. In the event of a deadlock, a voting procedure may be invoked. The votes of holobionts demonstrating the highest thermal vulnerability shall be assigned preferential weight. Multispecies inquiry protocols shall be established utilizing delegated representatives tasked with safeguarding the rights and interests of the collective biotic community (adhering to the Zoöp Model).
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  • Section 12. Biotic Recycling Protocol: All structural materials salvaged from dismantling operations must be repurposed locally to create micro-habitats providing shade, humidity, and opacity for microfauna and spontaneous urban flora.
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FINAL PROVISION

This Ordinance shall automatically take effect during the summer months or during officially declared extreme heat events, operating continuously from the moment the sun rises above the horizon until its setting.

Any violation of these provisions shall be legally classified as Biotic Negligence and a Violation of Opacity, and shall be subject to prosecution ex officio by the Shadow Self-Defense Office.

The Shadow Self-Defense Office shall serve as the enforcement authority empowered to audit, collect, and manage the financial revenues generated by the Shadow Tax set forth in Section 6. These funds shall be transferred directly, transparently, and without administrative or bureaucratic mediation to the financial accounts of the respective Neighborhood Umbrological Assemblies (ASUB) within the district where the tax was levied (pursuant to Title V), and shall be restricted exclusively to the funding and execution of local urban ecological redirection plans.

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