Thesis at Cooper Union, 2013
Living Landform
Between a Particle and land Mississippi Delta, Louisiana Instructor : Diana Agrest
Mississippi Delta The Mississippi River is subjected to multiple forces in its estuary that create a "Bird's foot delta". This unique landform is the result of sand that keeps on blocking the river course by depositing itself, while water flow always tends to find a shortcut to enter the Gulf of Mexico, which collects 593,000 cu ft/s of water and 400 million tons of sand per year from 1,151,000 square miles of land (about 1/3 of the United States), Meanwhile, the ocean force erodes the coastal edge which prevents the create of new land. In recent years, the coastal land suffered from severe land loss which resulted from both man-made and natural factors, including blocking sand by establishing over 100 dams and raising sea level by global warming. With 400 million tons of sand brought by the Mississippi River each year, researching the sand movement reveals the potential for creating, manipulating, and developing a new landscape. Landform Model
Land loss / Salt water intrusion Since 20th century, Mississippi delta and its adjacent coastal area are suffered from severe land loss and salt water intrusion. This disaster are resulted from numerous man-made hydraulic infrastructures, which ignored and broke natural balance, such as hundreds of dams blocking half of overall sediment alone the river and the levee preventing perennial flood to supplement decreasing land. In recent two decades, federal government utilized several methods trying to mitigate this phenomenon. Two of the most significant ways are fresh water diversion and beneficial use of dredged material. However, some of ensuing result was critiqued lacking holistic environmental consideration.
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20 miles 20 Km
Salt Water Intrusion
Land loss area rearrange
land loss
Dredge
Pile
Navigation
Four Prototypes : Interference and Deposit
1. 1. Hopper Dredge
2 2. Delivery
3. Make an Emitter 3
Reuse dredged material Dredged material, which is the waste after cleaning the river bed for navigable reason, is over 78 million cubic yard per year. It could be an opportunity to reshape the land through re-depositing this abundant volume of sand and power of water. In other words, re-deposited sand can be piled as an emitter. Also, water flow speed could be manipulated by arraying trunks of dead bald cypress, which is abundant in adjacent fresh marsh and died a lot after salt water intrusion. In this thesis, by skillfully applying natural forces and natural materials, such as water flow, sun, sand and plant, it is possible to create landform with more reasonable and animated poise. In this thesis, I try to apply this idea to West Bay, which located at 4.7 miles above head of passes. In West Bay Sediment Diversion project, the Corps of Engineer finished in 2001, but not created enough land as they expected. The proposal which I proposed provides more opportunities and easier to manipulate the landform needed.
Current of Gulf of Maxico 7:00 AM
Current of Gulf of Maxico 7:00 PM
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3 4 1. Curved shape with multi-flood 2. Triangle shape with multi-flood 3. Circle and line 4. Bold cypree tree trunks