What might Chicago look like as the climate continues to shift—and how might we learn to live with those changes rather than deny them? Presented as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, “Future Climate Souvenirs” by speculative design studio Parsons & Charlesworth turns climate projections into something unexpectedly familiar: souvenirs you might pick up on a future visit to the city. Patches, postcards and keepsakes reference rising lake levels, migrating species, extreme weather and new forms of urban adaptation—rendered not as catastrophe, but as cultural artifacts.
Artists and designers Jessica Charlesworth and Tim Parsons have long used humor and speculation as tools for public engagement—and this project is no different. By framing climate futures through tourism and everyday objects, “Future Climate Souvenirs” invites Chicagoans to consider what kinds of changes may already be underway—and what choices still remain. In this conversation, they discuss how research becomes design, why humor can cut through climate fatigue, and what speculative souvenirs can reveal about a city in transition.
“Future Climate Souvenirs” turns speculative climate scenarios into everyday objects. As designers, what can a “souvenir” reveal about a city’s identity—and how did you use it to reflect Chicago’s climate anxieties, aspirations or contradictions?
Souvenirs typically provide a snapshot of a city’s identity by depicting the places around which there is pride, investment and cultural significance. A souvenir is fast, quick and visual and has to work on many levels—to visually engage and intrigue, have a short enough and catchy enough title, and relate to known places or cultural signifiers. They are useful rhetorical devices for imagining futures because they denote a specific place that is assumed to be aspirational to visit. By showing places that have been dramatically altered by climate change as the subject of souvenirs, it helps an audience envision a state of climate-crisis adaptation. Rather than normalizing the crisis, our aim is to use this contrast to prompt discussion of the conditions that would lead to such places existing.
Your practice often blends research, narrative and product design. For this project, what did the translation process look like—from climate data and urban research to the final artifacts? Were there moments when the science pushed the design in an unexpected direction?
Our research revealed Chicago’s shifting ecological future, including predictions of altered blooming and breeding cycles, migrating species arriving from the south and increases in human-introduced invasive species, erosion along the lakefront, increased heat exacerbated by the heat island effect, urban canopy loss, fluctuating lake levels and increasingly dramatic weather patterns. These potential shifts helped us imagine the city’s new eco-tourist destinations: places where adaptation becomes visible.
We started imagining things like:
What if Chicago created seasonal phenology festivals?
What if skyscrapers sprouted vertical rewilding belts?
What if Lower Wacker became a bat refuge?
What if the polar vortex became a signature Chicago “weather holiday”?
From our research, the eight sites emerged—part local myth, part ecological probability. What if the city glowed at night—powered by living light, not fossil fuels? What if rising lake levels and restored wetlands created natural swimming pools that might bring back migrating waterfowl?
There were definitely surprises that informed the designs along the way, such as stories of armadillos already having reached southern Illinois. This led to the “I Spotted an Armadillo” patch—something which sounds improbable at first but with milder winters and this news, seems plausible.
What conversations do you hope Chicagoans will have when they encounter these speculative souvenirs? And in what ways did CAB’s themes influence how you wanted the public to imagine—and engage with—Chicago’s climate future?
CAB’s theme of architecture in times of radical change acknowledges that we are undeniably living in a time of radical change! And that the climate crisis is of course just one factor contributing to that change. There is a sense of inevitability and powerlessness around the subject which leads to a kind of climate fatigue. We’re tired of being fed doomsday scenarios and hence we felt that engaging people with humor around ideas of adaptation might prove a more effective tool.
First of all we hope people laugh! They are supposed to be funny, but as a means of getting people talking about this very serious topic. Then I think we want people to think: “What if these places existed?” “What would have led to that?” And ultimately, “What do we need to do to avoid some of the more extreme changes coming to pass?”
The Future Climate Souvenirs kiosk is open at 840 North Michigan, Thursday-Sunday, 12pm-6pm, through January 31.
Future Climate Souvenirs Presents: A Future Chicago Eco-Tour, January 24, 2026, 2pm–3pm, 840 North Michigan, register free here.
Greek-born Vasia Rigou is a writer, editor, and curator. Her appreciation for art began early, shaped by her family’s meticulously planned, culture-packed trips across Europe—complete with every museum stop imaginable. Much of her work, writing about visual art, design, and culture can be found at Newcity, Chicago’s leading culture publication, where she serves as editor. She also regularly contributes to Artnet News and to international magazines OnOffice and ICON. In her curatorial practice she explores themes of identity, intimacy, and belonging. You can usually find her gallery hopping around the city—occasionally with her toughest (and tiniest) critic, baby Benjamin, whose current favorite medium is finger paint. Say hi on Instagram or at rigouvasia.com.
