Archinect - News

Army Corps of Engineers considers $4.6 billion Miami flood control project

2020-06-17T11:32:00-04:00

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is floating a $4.6 billion plan to protect the most vulnerable areas in Miami-Dade County, Florida, from future coastal flooding and storm surge damage. The plan is part of the $3 million, three-year Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study, which is examining current and future storm management strategies.

According to Construction Dive, "the proposed plan focuses on seven geographic areas and would include the construction of storm surge barriers with floodwalls and pump stations, as well as nonstructural measures like home elevations and flood-proofing. The plan also includes the flood-proofing of infrastructure outside of the seven areas but still within the county and one nature-based feature at a site in Cutler Bay, about 17 miles south along the coast from the city of Miami."

Now that the feds have abandoned reality, enter this competition to keep the SF Bay Area from flooding

2017-01-26T15:13:00-05:00

Prompted by the success of a similar competition it ran in New York several years ago, The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a completely Ben-Carson-HUD-free contest that challenges architects and urban planners to "imagine climate change solutions" for the San Francisco Bay Area. Opening for submissions in April, "The Bay Area: Resilient by Design Challenge" will have two phases. According to NextCity:

In the first, teams will participate in a three-month “exploratory research and community engagement period to develop initial design concepts for specific sites,” according to the release. The second will be a “collaborative five-month intensive design phase” in which teams will work with residents, businesses, community-based organizations and local politicians. Because three Bay Area cities (Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley) are already part of another climate change adaptation effort, Rockefeller's 100 Resilient Cities, the two projects will collaborate.

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The absorbing design of China's anti-flood "sponge cities"

2016-10-11T13:08:00-04:00

Is flood mitigation the new frontier in urban planning? China, whose urban centers have regularly been experiencing infrastructure-shuttering floods, is actively encouraging its metropolises to start reshaping themselves to handle the new reality via the so-called "sponge city" program. As an article in The Guardian notes:

The sponge city programme takes inspiration from low impact development in the US, water sensitive urban design in Australia and sustainable drainage systems in the UK.

But nothing at this scale has ever been attempted before. “The sponge city programme is more comprehensive and ambitious,” says WenMei Ha, head of the China water management team at Arcadis, an international urban consultancy which was appointed to this plan by the government.

For more on flood mitigation and the entities trying to rise above it:

Nijmegen's new approach to flood control — and urban design

2015-05-18T16:35:00-04:00

The people of Nijmegen aren’t taking their good luck for granted. With climate change expected to bring more intense storms like the one in 1995 (and a previous one in 1993), the city is embarking on a massive flood-control project. That may be expected in the Netherlands, a low-lying country where most homes are built behind protective dikes [...]. But even here, the approach underway in Nijmegen is unusual, and filled with ideas that river cities anywhere can learn from.

How to Think Like the Dutch in a Post-Sandy World

2014-04-11T21:12:00-04:00

Dutch water-management experts have done such a good job of protecting their country that they rarely get to practice with water crises — whereas America was facing something monumental that as a culture it didn’t yet grasp. When Donovan arrived back in the U.S., he opened an email from Ovink that said, in effect, “I hope this isn’t too forward, but could I come work with you?”

Going With the Flow

2013-02-14T11:12:00-05:00

Another way to phrase it is that hard decisions need to be made to cope with rising waters and severe weather. Notwithstanding the obvious difference between a group of farmers on a Dutch polder and communities in the Rockaways or Coney Island, good government makes those decisions while giving affected residents adequate knowledge and agency: the ability to make choices, and the responsibility to live by them.