Past Projects
The Great Lakes region boasts an extensive coastline, which spans over 10,000 miles, a length longer than the combined United States’ Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. As the largest freshwater reserve in the world, the Great Lakes provide a vital source of drinking water for millions of people in the United States. Read more here.
Initially centered on harbor improvements, the Philadelphia District played a pivotal role in deepening the Delaware River federal channel during World War II, extending its oversight to 500 miles of navigable waterways. In response to rising sea levels and intensified storms, the District has markedly increased its engagement in flood mitigation projects. Read more here.
The Mobile District spans five distinct eco-regions and is one of the most biodiverse places in the country due to warm latitudes and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. This ecological range from sea to mountain contains a multitude of saltwater and estuarine plants and animals, along with diverse freshwater species such as mussels, fish, and salamanders. Read more here.
Five projects in the San Francisco District were selected for their diversity in terms of types and scales of nature-based infrastructures, timelines, phases, objectives, and representation of the diverse regions of the District. Each seeks to highlight forward thinking and innovative design concepts, some already in development, others building from the planning and operations of the District. Read more here.
Publications
‘Silt Sand Slurry’ is a visually rich investigation into where, why, and how sediment is central to the future of America’s coasts. Humans are already redesigning the planet, both deliberately and inadvertently. In this sense, we have no choice but to design. Altered sediment systems are just one piece of a larger process, which Jedediah Purdy has called “a kind of collective landscape architecture” that enrolls all humanity as we “shape the world by living.” Our designs make many worlds on the surface of the Earth. Agency in how these worlds are shaped is neither equally nor equitably distributed, but we all must live within them, and so we all have a stake in how they are being made. Thus, sediment design should not belong exclusively to professionals. The challenges we face in designing better sediment systems, from learning to design infrastructures that foster dynamic, healthy landscapes to democratizing this work, are challenges that reverberate through many dimensions and instances of our collective world-shaping. When we look closely at sediments—observing why they move, where they deposit, and how they relate to all that they touch—we see many worlds more clearly.
It’s time to get muddy.
Find out more here.