Living With Water: How Flexible Structure Types Build Resilience in a Dynamic Landscape？

Abstract

Coastal cities of the United States have suffered and will suffer great loss from flood-related hazards. Governments and organizations have taken many strategies to prevent, mitigate, and recover from their impact. When the episodic hazards, however, are accompanied with chronological threat—namely sea level rise—together they will generate more challenges than what traditional treatments can resolve. Widely adopted mitigation methods, such as stronger structures and higher elevations, are showing limitations given land loss due to sea level rise. This research explores alternative strategies in the land use planning and architectural realm to enhance hazard resilience in Mexico Beach. The research aims at identifying some unconventional architectural techniques other than elevating foundations-- such as floating homes, amphibious homes and disposable homes-- that may enhance resilience to coastal hazards in a dynamic landscape, and determining under what environmental, regulatory and economic conditions they may most appropriately be employed. Mexico Beach in Florida is such a site threatened by both episodic hazards like flood and hurricanes, and slow but ever-present sea level rise. In 2018, Hurricane Michael brought devastation to Mexico Beach, but it also opened a window to redevelopment as well as an opportunity to experiment with revolutionary methods of handling coastal threats. In the course of researching this thesis, Mexico Beach adopted a plan which excluded the application of these techniques. In response, this thesis presents Sanibel, Florida, as a counterfactual case to illustrate how a conservationist strategy might encourage development with a resilient suite of housing types.