The images were disturbing. When Al Gore released his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, it was concerning to see what was happening to our planet. The parts of the film that were especially heartbreaking for people who love design and cities were the scenes that described what would happen to some of the world?s most populous urban areas if climate change were to continue on its course without a drastic shift in human behavior. The image of the partially submerged Lower Manhattan was probably the most memorable visual of all. It certainly got every designer thinking, but specifically those involved in landscape architecture.
In 2009, the Museum of Modern Art in New York commissioned five groups of designers for an exhibit called ?Rising Currents: Projects for New York?s Waterfront.? The groups created solutions for the rising sea levels around the city and the neighboring state of New Jersey. Each group was given a different section of coastline in the metropolitan area on which to focus their research, allowing them to come up with distinctive answers to all kinds of complex problems.
The first solution featured in the exhibit dealt with Lower Manhattan. Landscape architecture firm DLANDstudio proposed an idea called ?A New Urban Ground,? which combined nature and infrastructure. The firm proposed the building up of wetlands just off the coastline, and on the coastline itself, it suggested berms to protect the city from rising sea levels and storm surges caused by a...