Files
Download Full Text (6.7 MB)
Date
9-7-2014
Description
Storm Proof | Coastal Caretaker | Team Member, Digital Media, 2013
In Louisiana, the shoreline is not a line but a plain, composed of low marshes, scraggly cheniers, and fertile estuaries. In its present fragile state, it serves as the natural storm-surge barrier for five urban environments: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Houston, TX. Increased storm-action and a 1-meter sea level rise will inundate this barrier plain and place these urban environments directly on the Gulf of Mexico. The COASTAL CARETAKERS work to reconstruct the inundated coastal plain, repurposing the elevated infrastructure that remains after future sea level rise and storm system actions. The caretakers clamp to the vertical structure of the abandoned and flooded elevated highways, bridges, train trestles, etc. and cast their nets to capture the sediment deposits of the Mississippi. Over time, these deposits are layered, treated, planted, and then re-deposited to actuate the formation of storm-proofing barrier islands to once again protect these communities.
Recommended Citation
Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, "Ursula Emery McClure, AIA, FAAR, LEED AP BD+C / B.A., 1992" (2014). Women in the Design World: Work in Progress. 48.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/wia_profiles/48
Comments
Women in the Design World: Work in Progress, an exhibition presented by the Sam Fos School of Design and Visual arts in conjunction with the Women in Architecture Symposium 2014.