Pollinator-friendly plants, trees, wood, textile grow bags, aluminum
August 2025 – October 2025
At a time when cities like Boston face intensifying summer heat and widening environmental disparities, PlanTable offers a living, participatory response—merging ecology, culture, and community in one dynamic space. This multidisciplinary project, presented in partnership with Pao Arts Center, emerges from a deep collaboration between artists, designers, community advocates, and climate thinkers.
Conceived as a modular, scalable structure, PlanTable integrates trees and pollinator-friendly plants, functioning as a plug-in biodiversity node within the city. It provides essential refuge not only for people but also for pollinators, whose populations are increasingly threatened by rising temperatures and habitat loss.
The installation responds directly to Chinatown’s specific climate challenges as Boston’s hottest neighborhood, with limited tree canopy and public green space. Featuring 16 trees and a rich palette of perennial plants designed to attract pollinators, PlanTable is both temporary and enduring. When the installation concludes, all vegetation will be gifted to community members, allowing its ecological and social legacy to continue.
At the core of PlanTable is a long communal table, doubling as a climate timeline that charts rising global temperatures since 1870—the year Boston’s Chinatown was founded. Highlighted bars mark the years when temperatures exceeded historical averages, revealing an accelerating trend that mirrors the community’s urgent calls for climate justice.
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About the Artist
Ecosistema Urbano is an international architecture and urban design studio working across urban consultancy, public space assessment, and urban transformation processes. Their practice is rooted in the design of high-quality public spaces that enhance bioclimatic performance and ensure climatic comfort, adapting to a wide range of environmental conditions. In response to climate change, they embed resilient design principles into every project, combining immediate interventions with long-term strategies to promote more sustainable, livable, and adaptable urban environments.
A Special Thank You to Our Supporters
PlanTable is part of the Un-monument Initiative presented by Pao Arts Center, curated by Lani Asunción, in collaboration with the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, and community partner the Greenway Conservancy. It is brought to you by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Public Art on The Greenway is made possible with major support from the Barr Foundation, Goulston & Storrs, the Greenway Business Improvement District, the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation, Meet Boston, the Wagner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard K. Lubin Family Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee, and New Commonwealth Fund.
About The Greenway and the Conservancy
The Greenway is a contemporary public park in the heart of Boston. We welcome millions of visitors annually to gather, play, unwind, and explore. The Greenway Conservancy is the non-profit responsible for the management and care of The Greenway. The majority of the public park’s annual budget is generously provided by private sources.
The Greenway Conservancy Public Art Program brings innovative and contemporary art to Boston through free exhibitions that engage people in meaningful experiences and dialogue with art, each other, and the most pressing issues of our time. Past Greenway exhibitions can be viewed on the Public Art Instagram (@greenwaypublicart) or The Greenway website (https://www.
