The Interference

The interference between land and water

Why
Rising sea level continuously poses a long-term existential danger to the coastal cities such as Boston, Miami and New York due to global warming. According to “Climate Central”, if the global temperatures rise 4 degrees Celsius, the rising sea levels will raise to 8.9m. In this scenario, the water level shallow up our neighborhoods and cultural icons in Hong Kong and other coastline cities like Shanghai.

What
In “Sea Change Boston” research, a group of US based architects introduces options on urban habitation based on the sea level change to tackle the rising sea level: keep water out, move to higher ground or adapt to live with water. Further to the research finding, this thesis will explore an architectural intervention for the water and our coastal cities to co-exist. After exploration in precedents and theories, the design could be a prototype for coastal cities but it will be implemented to a selected site with active response to the context.

Potential theory:
1. Gissen, David. Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments: Atmospheres, Matter, Life. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Print.
2. Frampton, Adam; Solomon, Jonathan D.; Wong, Clara. Cities without ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook.

Citation:
1. Li Jing; Agence France-Presse, Rising sea level set to displace 45 million people in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tianjin if earth warms 4 degrees from climate change. 2015. Source: SCMP. 2015, Colour Rendering print,1024×768.  Available from SCMP. http://www.scmp.com/print/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1877284/rising-sea-levels-set-displace-45-million-people
2. Sasaki Associates, Sea Change: Boston. 2015 Source: Sasaki. 2015, Colour print, 1024×768. Available from Sasaki. http://www.sasaki.com/project/360/sea-change-boston/

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There is about 70% land covered by sea.

Human is ground habitat. We interact social, we work, we study, and we entertained on ground. We encounter dense or overlapping habitat condition for certain districts on ground, mostly all of the cities in the world. Among these cities, we experiment several strategies to overcome overlapped habitation. One of the strategies our cities have been applying over the years – “reclamation”, is to top off high level ground and relocate them to the sea. These artificial ground, where reclaimed from the sea, have become higher density living environment. The downside of reclamation causes our sea level to rise rapidly over the recent decades. In fact, the water will reach our cities long before our skyscrapers reach the sky.

The term “Utopia” was developed in 1516, an ideal scene of a perfect city from an architect’s perception. And nowadays, architect’s perception is to co-exist habitation and sea. The interference of sea and land will become architects’ new canvas.

Andrea Della Adriano, Global Warming in USA. 2007. Source: Terra dreams. 2007, Colour Rendering print,1024×768. Available from: Flickr,  http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about/factshe ets.html. (accessed September 10, 2015)