Lagoon Archipelagos

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Lagoon Archipelagos

Lagoon Archipelagos is a proposal for rethinking growth and infrastructure for San Francisco Bay in the context of climate change and rising sea levels. A new reinforcing infrastructure of geo-textile tubes and levees lays the groundwork for a semi-rigid regional management and regulatory network within the projected flood zone. As the water line advances, displaced land types are redistributed within the network. Sea level rise becomes a catalyst for future growth and an accelerated exchange between land and water. As the region floods, it is more interconnected. Data on each parcel within the flood zone is compiled and used to generate a series of relational logics. Developed land types extend further into the Bay on pylons while agricultural and wetland types hug the shore and proliferate within the shallow regions. Each parcel’s area is divided and distributed within the network with sensitivity to the new water line, the historical line, and the water’s depth, as well as a tendency to cluster or disperse in relation to other parcels. Over time the network relaxes and accretes creating an inverse archipelago of bodies of water within a loose net of retained land. The surface area of water is maintained, as are the existing shipping lanes, but the length of the water’s edge and the ecosystems that exist there are radically increased. The emerging ecology is one of linked lagoons, islands, and marshes held within a regulatory and energy producing infrastructure. Tidal and wind power are harvested along gates that control the flow of water, preserving and re-circulating the estuary waters within a large wetland park.

2009

ModeNRML Projects TenTwenty

Ronnie Parsons, Gil Akos, Michael Chen, Jason Lee

Proposal

San Francisco | California