The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) will seek to integrate scientific knowledge with the ancestral wisdom of the Likanantay people in northern Chile.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Filantropía Cortés Solari (FCS) announced the beginning of an international academic study titled “Designing Resilient Futures in Water-Scarce Territories: Lessons from Atacama“.
This initiative represents the first milestone of the Elemental Mission Program, an initiative that seeks to generate applied knowledge, recommendations, and effective conservation models across a latitudinal network of FCS Elemental Reserves, distributed throughout Chile
This study will focus on the Puribeter Elemental Reserve, located in San Pedro de Atacama (23rd parallel South), and contemplates an intensive field phase to be carried out in early 2026. It will be led by Professor Pablo Pérez-Ramos, from Harvard GSD, and aims to rethink territorial design in contexts of climate crisis. “In Puribeter, water scarcity is not just a technical challenge, but a source of deep territorial knowledge,” explains the academic.
Design and resilience in the driest desert in the world
The research will seek a balance between contemporary science, water management, and the ancestral wisdom of the Likanantay people, allowing Harvard graduate students to design solutions that respect the cultural and ecological identity of the territory.
The fieldwork, scheduled between February 21 and March 1, will include direct interactions with local communities, scientists, and authorities. The goal is to propose guidelines that can be transformed into public policies and sustainable development models for arid zones, both in Chile and the rest of the planet.
A latitudinal conservation network
The Elemental Mission program, promoted by Filantropía Cortés Solari through the MERI Foundation, seeks to connect three points of the Chilean territory to produce applied knowledge: the Puribeter Elemental Reserve (23° S), the Likandes Elemental Reserve in the central zone (33° S), and the Melimoyu Elemental Reserve in Northern Patagonia (44° S).
This latitudinal network makes it possible to study diverse ecosystems, from extreme aridity to the temperate forests and pristine fjords of the south.
“Having Harvard work in a reserve in the heart of the Atacama Desert is a concrete bet on generating global solutions from the territory, integrating science, culture, and community,” noted Francisca Cortés Solari, president of the namesake philanthropy.
It is expected that the design proposals and governance recommendations will be presented at high-impact international forums, such as COP30, positioning Chile’s Elemental Reserves as benchmarks in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss.
Source: Cooperativa
