How do you protect coastal communities from flooding when your politicians refuse to believe in climate change?

concept by John Moody, Santiago Fernandez-Reyes, Catie Ferrara, Phillip Hu, Holly Jacobson, Xinyi Ma

Storms, flooding, and sea level rise increasingly threaten urbanism in South Florida. The escalating frequency and intensity of rain and a rising water table compound with development patterns that continue to operate as if the ground can be kept dry forever—creating a recipe for disaster. However, the state government has made the term “climate change” all but illegal, laying the burden of long-range resiliency planning to individual cities and counties.

In 2015, our urban design studio at MIT partnered with Broward County and Palm Beach County planning departments to develop strategies to better adapt to an inevitably wetter future using tools that they already possess, especially that of the zoning code. I worked on the team that led the Broward County plan.

A Pitch for Resiliency: Flux Zoning & the 2070 Master Plan

Presentation Boards by: John Moody, Santiago Fernandez-Reyes, Catie Ferrara, Phillip Hu, Holly Jacobson, Xinyi Ma

The bulk of my work focused on creating dynamic landscape models that informed my team’s “flux zone” adaptation strategy and unlocked a framework for each of us to design tailored solutions for different urban conditions that could fit seamlessly together in a comprehensive plan.

For my individual site work, I focused on shifting the conversation around Broward County’s low-lying coastal neighborhoods—its first line of exposure to extreme weather events—from floods threatening dry property to one that embraces water and ecosystem as opportunities for protection and tourism, creating a uniquely Floridian experience adapted to the area’s new role as a coastal buffer.

Our studio marked the beginning of further collaboration between MIT and Broward County, including the MIT Urban Risk Lab’s flux.land platform, which is currently being used in public school curricula in Broward County to help students understand and explore the local impacts of sea level rise.

Role: Designer
For: Broward & Palm Beach Counties, Florida
Date: 2015
Type: urban design, research

Broward County team: John Moody, Santiago Fernandez-Reyes, Catie Ferrara, Phillip Hu, Holly Jacobson, Xinyi Ma
Instructors: Adèle Naudé Santos, Alan Berger, Fadi Masoud
11.332J/ 4.163J: Urban Design Studio, MIT School of Architecture and Planning

Regional Climate Analysis + Projection

I focused on comparing historical trends in urbanism, rainfall, temperature, and hurricane frequency. The first image below juxtaposes those trends on a 150-year timeline.

The Waterlogged State

by John Moody, Samantha Cohen, Laura Williams

PDF (2mb)

Site Visit

Broward County Flood Risk

While my team focused on researching precedent projects, I worked on producing these maps which helped us create critical foundation for our zoning strategy.

Coastal Area Flood Risk Animation (:53)

We all produced these little animations for our individual sites, using 3D landscape models that we generated from 2D topographic data in Rhino. This is mine for the coastal area. I ran an After Effects workshop to help my colleagues animate their videos.

Design Inspirations

Naturally, I looked to natural coastal buffers in The Netherlands! And the climate design visions of Fadi Massaud, Adele Naude-Santos, Luis Callejas, and Field Operations.