CAT Scans for Cities

From any urban street corner, it’s difficult to tell which apartment buildings are energy efficient, which residents are consuming the most energy, or which office complexes are retaining the most heat from the sun, boosting the need for tenants inside to crank up the air conditioning. Energy use and, more specifically, energy efficiency, are among the most critical issues for cities to measure, map, and understand in an era of scare resources and climate change. But they’re also nearly impossible to see.

Infrared cameras, however, reveal an entirely different urban landscape. These images capture temperature along with scene. They can catch leaky buildings and baking asphalt. They portray the built environment in thermal portraits as vibrant as the living street life below.