Jiamin Jasmine Chen . Littoral Negotiations: Envisioning a New Coastal Interface [ MLA Thesis ]

LITTORAL NEGOTIATIONS

ENVISIONING A NEW COASTAL INTERFACE FOR THE DIKED LOWLANDS OF LULU ISLAND JIAMIN JASMINE CHEN l MAY 2019

LITTORAL NEGOTIATIONS: ENVISIONING A NEW COASTAL INTERFACE FOR THE DIKED LOWLANDS OF LULU ISLAND IN RICHMOND, BC

A Design Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Landscape Architecture

by Jiamin Jasmine Chen May 2019

Š 2019 Jiamin Jasmine Chen

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH_ Jiamin Jasmine Chen holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from Cornell University, where she was awarded with the National Student ASLA Honors Award. She also holds a Bachelors of Environmental Design from University of British Columbia in her hometown, Vancouver, Canada. The experience of growing up in Canada and its diverse terrains has instilled a deep appreciation of landscapes. It has led her to pursue landscape architecture practice after undergraduate studies. She has spent her years before graduate school working as a landscape designer at CSCEC, where she was engaged in a diverse range of state, public and private landscape projects. Those experiences have sparked her curiosity for understanding the relationships between landscape materials, processes and culture.

During her time at Cornell she has worked alongside faculties, researchers and colleagues to explore the relationship between various cities, their people and water. Her work ranged from mapping flood-risks to working with municipalities in creating exhibitions envisioning climate-adaptive futures, to working with researchers from other departments and the NY Department of Environmental Conservation in tracing and revealing hidden urban streams as valuable cultural landscape resources. Despite the diversity in her work, the process was revolved around the power of cultivating landscape literacy and the agency it can provide to laypersons as they are able understand and converse about their environment, its processes and its impact on their daily lives.

After graduation she looks forward to returning to practice as well as continuing her exploration of the nuanced and delightful ways in which material practice can cultivate a symbiotic cultural relationship between people and the landscape.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_ I am very grateful to my advisors, Brian Davis and Martin Hogue, for their continuous support, insight and encouragement over the course of this thesis. Thank you for constantly reminding me why and how this work got started, for believing in the work I do and will deliver, and for pushing me to reach for my full potential.

My immense gratitude to all my studio peers who have inspired me with their work and their company. Especially to Isabella Welch, Elizabeth Fabis, Rambod Mirbana and Sahar Farmand. Your presences have brought me so much joy over the years and some of the best memories I’ve had in the duration of this program.

A special thanks to Arkgo, who has been a tremendous friend for the past 8 years. As we both embarked, struggled and successfully defended our graduate design thesis together this year, I’m as proud of you as you are of me.

And most of all, thank you to my parents who have always believed in and encouraged my endeavors unconditionally.

Thank you Okan, who has been a loving partner and have always taken meticulous care to support me.

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ABSTRACT_ Sitting at merely one meter above sea level, Lulu Island’s exceptional flatness is simultaneously confronted by overlapping ephemeral waters from the sea, the river, the rain and both fresh and saline waters from deep within the ground, reaching far behind the dikes and into the daily lives of its residents through an ever-shifting ground condition unique to the island. The design revisions the littoral interface by amplifying the vivid water-earth rhythms and intersecting them with social routines through dynamic and intimate experiences that grows with time, re-grounding people’s relationship to their biophysical surroundings and its changes over time.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS_ Biographical Sketch Acknowledgments Abstract

vi vii viii

Introduction

Context & Scope

Central Critique

Theoretical Framework Methods

3 9 11 13

Analysis

Temporal Iterations: Littoral Reach Site: Littoral Dynamism

19 45

Design

Overview: Lulu Atoll

Inner Reach

Outer Reach

71 77 91

Conclusion

Key Findings References

97 99

INTRODUCTION_

FRASER DELTA CONTEXT_ Richmond is truly a child of the Fraser River, the second largest undammed river in North America. The city was built on 17 islands in the delta of the Fraser River, with solid bedrock sitting more than 200 meters below the surface. Lulu Island is its largest and most populated island. Averaging about one meter above sea level and with areas subjecte to flooding during high water, the islands were drained by a vast system ditches which allowed rainwater to run off to the river as well as allowing fresh river water to flow in and out with the tide.

There are several key regional issues shaping the future of this island city. Firstly, the incredibly high land value of Metro Vancouver exerts enormous development pressures on the island despite its hazardous geography. Secondly, the unconsolidated nature of its substrate will potentially cause substantial subsidence of up to 2m. Thirdly, sea level rise is projected to inundate the entire island in the next century. Lastly, habitat degradation of the marshes and tidal flats from the combined influences of development, dredging and sea level rise. As such, the relationship between people and the character of the land they are looking to inhabit will become increasingly strenuous in the future.

Lansat satellite imagery, 2016 3

Stanley Park + UBC + VANCOUVER

Sturgeon Bank +

Roberts Bank +

LULU ISLAND

LULU ISLAND CONTEXT_ Being the largest and most populated island of Richmond, about 160,000 residents presently live on the island. The island is also very flat, sitting at an average of one meter above sea level, which is below the current high tide park. As a result, a perimeter dike currently protects the island. However, it experiences ongoing seepage both under and through the dike. They are also aging out of their effectiveness as the sea level rises, along with other flood protection infrastructure such as ditches and pumps.

At the same time, the residents on this island have limited awareness of this precarious trajectory despite apparent evidences of increasing sogginess on the island grounds. My hypothesis is that this negligence is largely be due to the a misinformed cultural narrative and a false sense of safety associated with living behind a dike that for the past few decades, has never been fully breached.

Lansat satellite imagery, 2016 5

+ perimeter dike

CHALLENGING INVESTED LINES_ Site boundaries are never objective frames but a social construct deeply rooted in the lenses of their beholders. It alters how people perceive and represent space itself. When Europeans first arrived on this coast with ambitions for settlement, they brought with them the idea of a coastline and Terra Nullis, land not belonging to anyone. In present day North America, a line respected not just for the separation it made, but also the property that it marked (Mathur, 2019). Certainly in British Columbia, the notion of identifiable ownership is ironclad. As we investigate deeper into the attitudes of past actants on the site, we can see the evolution of the notions of property and ownership and the drastic formal and spatial languages they have imposed onto the land.

The opportunity and the right to own and control land in the new continent was a motivation for early settlers, and they brought over with them the European idea that land ownership accrues through productive use, such as agriculture or forest management. This idea demarcates a particular and specific relationship to the land and was used by colonialists as justification for taking land away from Aboriginal natives through the Indian Act. Then, through subsequent years, aggressively stripped away not only their reservation acreage but also their trespassing rights, mineral rights, water rights, harvesting rights and the right to free trade. Their bundle of rights became increasingly fragmented and unraveled like their territorial dispossession.

Land ownership and management is a social contract that will continuously be challenged and renegotiated so long as there still conflicting stakes and perceptions among its social participants. Each time it does, its relationship between the different interest communities and the land will be reshuffled. The efficacy of land ownership as well as its invested, defining property lines as the basis for defining sites remains to be questioned. Its legitimacy for remain the defining form for the future littoral prompts even more doubts.

Trutch Land Survey, 1859 Richmond City Archives photograph RCF 17 7

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LITTORAL: A SPATIAL REACH_ Littoral adjective

1. of or relating to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean.

2. (on ocean shores) of or relating to the biogeographic region between the sublittoral zone and the high-water line and sometimes including the supralittoral zone above the high-water line.

The littoral zone is a dynamic and indeterminant exchange between land and water. The ever-shifting nature of those grounds makes it resistant to human settlement. Yet, over 10 percent of the world’s population live in coastal areas that are less than 10 meters above sea level (United Nations, 2017).

LITTORAL: A CULTURAL LEXICON_

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Present

Alternatives

+ linear + continuous + homogeneous + definite + static + rigid

+ transient + nourishing + accumulating + dynamic + differentiated + uneven + shifting . . .

REFRAMING THE LITTORAL LEXICON_ The diverse ways in which people utilize and habituate the physical littoral zone shows a multiplicity of cultural attitudes towards water. Despite living on grounds resistant to dryness, people have created a myriad of strategies to shape it into a more stable form to suit the conveniences of real estate through the hardening of its landscape (Mossop, 2019).This particular land-water relationship in North America is dominated by rigid and thoroughly engineered infrastructure systems in response to the need to secure dry land assets in the floodplains. This creates an inherently binary divide between dry land, its people, against the water.

The authoritative form and reductive aesthetics sever the historically symbiotic relationships between people and the water. This increasingly strenuous relationship in face of climate change provokes the questioning of this static approach, its inherent ecological and cultural consequences and the ambitious claims to have the capability to control increasing powerful environmental forces. Most importantly, it instills a problematic positioning for the future generations on the island and the ways in which it limits their perception of agency in a larger biotic context.

By limiting the interface of water to surface water washing up against an invested line, we “turn down other moments of the cycle when water is precipitating, soaking, evaporating, clouding, misting, in short, blurring and erasing lines” (Cunha, 2019). The built experience of the physical littoral zone is simultaneously the result of how a culture interprets their relationship to water and a catalyst for reshuffling those paradigms, such as through salvaging the consequences of its failure or discovering the dynamic and enduring experiences from its evolution and further becoming. The power imbedded in the experiential, material and narrative qualities of the built littoral can potentially expand our perceptions of ‘water’ to include a wider repertoire of important water forms and cycles. To preparea culture for more productive littoral futures, this potential needs to be harnessed by prompting a more eloquent set of cultural lexicon to describe and imagine the littoral interface.

“The problems – particularly infrastructure problems - that preoccupy the city do not stem necessarily from a lack of foresight, poor management or lack of funds, but perhaps from the persistence of a vocabulary of landscape that is inadequate for the complexities of the land. It is possible to seed new initiatives that cultivate fresh vocabularies and trajectories for future intervention.”

- Anuradha Mathur, Deccan Traverses: Making of Bangalore’s Terrain

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CULTIVATING NARRATIVES _ As we question physical and cultural littoral conventions, we also have to question our roles as landscape architects in this complex equation. There is an unique and potent intersection between the experiential versatilities of our mediums and our understandings of broader systems. When utilising it to promost long-term change, such as climate-awareness or grassroot community action, “not all changes have to be based on education, guilt, or a sense of self sacrifice. In the best cases, persuasion takes place unknowingly, gradually, but convincingly, until the change is perceived to be internal and an act of personal will, not collective guilt” (Meyer, 2008).

A landscape’s physical resilience depends on a citizenry that understands its dilemmas. It has to be inflected by recognition of public consciousness, institutional structure, historical patterns and local idiosyncrasy (Wolff, 2019).

The dynamic water processes that shaped and is continuously shaping Lulu Island is obscured by the tremendous effort of land reclamation, and at best registered as an everyday, ordinary nuisance when it makes its presence. The essential muddiness of the land and the processes of the delta became obscured underneath the pavement and behind the dike. The aim of my design is to reveal the hidden narratives of the landscape by accentuating the experience of those obscured landscape processes. Gradually a process-driven understanding of the land will be ingrained back into the mindset, customs, policies and culture of the people, thus changing the long-term relationship between people and place in the future.

To be literate in landscape is to recognize both problems in a place and its resources, to understand how they came about, by what means they are sustained, and how they are related. Design should promote change that is not only economically robust and ecologically sustainable, but also beautiful and just. ` - Anne Whiston Spirn, “Restoring Water”

Narrating an Ephemeral Coast and a Shifting Ground The connections, stories and meaning of the ground are brought into relations with the more immense and less comprehensible scale of natural processes that have a much larger spatial and temporal reach. In turn, the structure of the ground is brought into contact with human artifice and made intelligible as part of this world (Dripps, 2009).

The material narrative of the island - one of muddy and evershifting terrain, runs contrary to the narratives of dryland economy that presently dominates the island. The aim of this project is to reintroduce a set of cultural lexicon with new littoral vocabularies that embraces the littoral not as a rigid, static delineation, but as an ephemeral reach that expands and contracts in both breadth and depth with the dynamic water cycle. To achieve this, the binary understanding between dry land and water is redefined through a design response that holds the rise and fall of wetness on the island in a celebratory way. The full gradient of wetness in the ground is explored and a depth of materiality between the water and the earth is accentuated. The perception of the coast is reframed from a homogenous line into a cumulative and permeating gradient that becomes activated with transformative movements of the water cycle.

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SCOPING VOCABULARIES FROM THE FIELD_ Water can be volatile, violent, fragile, serene, elusive, ubiquitous, nourishing, devastating, wild, delicate, turbulent and fundamental to life.

- Marion Weiss, “Cultural Watermarks” Transient land is borne out of fluid dynamics. Bears the unsettling question of what is site, what is fixity, the antithesis of urbanization.

– Kazi Ashraf, “Water as Ground” In conceptualizing a more organic, fluid urbanism, ecology itself becomes an extremely useful lens...The designation terra firma (firm, not changing; fixed and definite) gives way in favor of the shifting processes coursing through and across the urban field: terra fluxus.

– James Corner, “Terra Fluxus”

The land is neither liquid or solid, the organization is undifferentiated, oozy, squelchy, materializing and dematerializing in an ongoing process of deposition, accumulation, stabilization, erosion, ebb and flow.

– Lindsay Bremner, “Muddy Logistics” ... Landscape as dynamic means of cultural expression and grounding mechanism that offered stability amidst perpetual change – idea of grounding in disturbances as a frequent, intrinsic character of ecosystems.

- Alison Hirsch, “Imaging change” Landscape refers not only to the environment, but also to the mood of the entire nation, its sense of identity, and cultural bearings... in which time can be visualized as a landscape security pattern that safeguards ecological, cultural and spiritual processes across the landscape.

– Kongjian Yu, “The Art of Survival”

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METHODS_ Landscape Biography My primary method of inquiry is through landscape biography, where I aim to find historical narratives of the physical and tactile coast, its social and cultural narratives, and and the iterations of habitation modes. The aim of this inquiry is to scope out several key narratives central to building my critique. To gather the materials needed for this inquiry, I worked with City of Richmond Archives to gain access to a repository of historical photos, maps and documents that portrayed the coast and its changes through time, as well as audio recordings of oral histories from both indigenous and contemporary residents. From those written, drawn and audio records, a more coherent narrative describing the cultural-littoral forces can be extracted. The city hall also supplemented drawings to this inquiry which document the iterations of built coastal interventions over time. When those resources were examined together with archival contract documents, a coherent narrative can be extracted, illustrating cultural ambitions of our past generation to drastically reconstruct and harden the coast. The changes in habitation patterns have had profound impacts on the groundmatter quality. Through archival photos, we can trace how the soggy groundmatter of the island gradually solidify and harden with each cultural iteration while stubbornly resisting to be dry enough.

Clay dike breach, 1952, Richmond City Archives

Lulu Isalnd 1920, at Richmond City Archives 13

Navigable Depth Fraser Study, 1974, at Richmond City Archives

Mapping Mapping is an essential process of my research. The cultural, physical and technological transformations of Lulu Island discovered through analogue methods are supplemented by mapping to understand their spatial implications. Through mapping I aim to trace littoral changes across multiple time-scales and to relate it to settlement patterns and their mode of economy. Since GIS and other spatial data repositories for the City of Richmond are not available to the public, all mappings are done through referencing studies from other fields such as geographic surveys, literature, doctoral thesis, atlases, historical maps, engineering documents, and other academic and professional sources. After selecting the most relevant sources, the spatial information that those sources provide was traced through a series of diagrams to juxtapose and extract relationships between patterns. Mapping is used as an exploration tool not only to trace littoral changes across a geological time, but also as a means to probing at how the littoral mediums that we work with — land and water, are understood by other professional fields, through their particular lenses.

Scanned pages, Sedimentary environments and postglacial history of the Fraser Delta, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2011 14

Field Documentation One of the key limitations of this project is the lack of GIS and other digital databases. As a result, other than archival information, firsthand field observations and photo documentation is an essential step in framing my understanding of the littoral processes on Lulu Island. I had two site visits on Lulu Island — once in the summer and another in winter, to experience and take note of seasonal transformations in the materiality and cultural uses along the littoral interface. A field journal recording dimensions, materials, processes of interest and samples was also kept. Since the experiential and material quality of the site is one of the key components for my design, findings from studying the field and photo documentation was referenced extensively throughout the analysis and design process.

Site visits in different seasons 15

Field journal documenting timber debris diameters

Representation A major challenge of this project is to find a unique representation style that embodies the dynamism and ambiguity, values intrinsic to the design process. Due to the archival nature of my data sources, I developed a raster sampling technique for my analysis that adheres to the graininess and complexity of the image materials. For design representation, I experimented with various traditional mediums that are made from groundmatter and appropriate to depict landscape narratives, from charcoals, pastels, watercolors and inks. In the end I chose sumi ink because the medium is made up of ground — of wood, animals and water. It is also favored for its grittiness, dry matte finish while maintaining an aqueous process of making. For paper I experimented with various watercolor, illustration boards, sketching paper and tracing paper. Surprisingly, tracing paper produced the most optimal result because of its lack of absorbency, which resulted in a relinquishing of control during the making process that aligns with the landscape values proposed by the design critique.

Inspirations Untitled, Kei Tanimoto

無我之境·有我之境 Gao Xingjian (高行健), 2006 16

TEMPORAL ITERATIONS: LITTORAL REACH_

A RECURRING NARRATIVE OF CULTURAL STRUGGLES_ Lulu Island has a very flat profile, yet its ground has an incredibly strong resistance to be drained. The photo on the right shows the soaked conditions across the island after a flood in 1954, where standing water took hold of the land for weeks. It is evident that humans have struggled to settle on this sodden terrain, yet somehow in recent decades this narrative of cultural struggle on the littoral interface has been forgotten.

Before envisioning a new littoral future for Lulu Island, it is essential to study the past efforts of reiteration on this littoral interface through materials from the archives, literature and other accounts. This set of historical studies not only examines the physical changes that transformed the water’s edge and the types of technologies that enabled this change, but also studies the ambitions of the people who occupied this zone and in what ways did this aqueous margin provide incentivices for this arduous settlement.

As I conducted a historical study of the island’s coastal interface, I realized that this margin was constantly being renegotiated by new cultural attitudes throughout the past century, providing a basis for speculating the next iteration.

Flood aftermath,1954 Richmond City Archive 19

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PRE-CONTACT: SUBSISTENCE INDIGENOUS LAND_

slough

marshes silt overwash +

+

+

EPHEMERAL + aqueous + pliable + undifferentiated + ebb + accumulating + dynamic

+

+

seaward silt laminations

21

landward sand & silt stratas

Sustenance: Seasonal Settlement

The Indigenous settlement on Lulu Island was intricately synched with the migration of salmon. Each summer, tribes from the Fraser valley, the coast and even from Vancouver Island arrive here and set up temporary camps to fish and gather plant resources. Every fall they canoe back home with their winter provisions.

Bountiful Grounds

The grounds of Lulu Island were murky, ephemeral and bountiful.

To the Coast Salish peoples in the area, Richmond’s islands were rich with cranberry bogs, crab apple trees and plentiful other plant resources. Deer grazed in the grassy lowlands and the sloughs were home to beaver, muskrats and mink as well as spawning salmon. Sturgeon and salmon were available in the river as well, and wildfowl were plentiful, especially during migration cycles. The natural sloughs were important transportation arteries, giving access deep into the island. Oral history indicates that more than 100 km of the sloughs were navigable by canoe.

Disappeared Slough System Important not only to native uses, early European settlers used the slough complexes for transport, as much as the First Nations people had. However, with the construction of roads throughout Richmond the sloughs became a hindrance to development. Farmers and road builders-built ditches and canals, diked their property to prevent flooding and filled in the original sloughs. By the end of the First World War most of the natural sloughs on Lulu Island were gone.

Canoe in slough, 1890 London’s Landing, 1889 Richmond City Archives

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traditional Salish fishing weir, from Clayoquotalliance

sketch of first settlement, from Clayoquotalliance 23

Clamming at low tide, 1858, Richmond City Archives 24

1860: BRITISH MERCANTILE_

elevated boardwalk piles

+

+

POINT FIXITY + transient + flexible + eroding + oozy + sinking + shifting

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Mercantile: Resource Extraction The first European presence on Lulu Island was at Steveston, a fishing and canning settlement situated at the southwest tip of Lulu Island. The settlement was established

by British mercantile forces, in particular the Hudson’s Bay Company. The trade for salmon and beaver fur was flourishing. Indigenous peoples often traded at the post and worked seasonally as fishermen and cannery workers alongside immigrant workers. Over time the settlement on Steveston grew, exporting great quantities of pelts and millions of salmon each year to the UK and beyond.

Settlement on Piles The littoral water cycle on Lulu Island during that period was just as episodic and dynamic as its seasonal work cycle. Industry, commerce and dwelling buildings were supported entirely upon friction piles, which were driven deep into the mucky ground.

Those buildings were connected by a system of boardwalks, also secured on the miry terrain by piles. This elevated habitation typology accommodates seasonal freshwater and seawater floodings that were active, dynamic and complex. At the same time, this typology was unhindered by the malleable ground, which material quality and stability were constantly being reshaped by those littoral fluxes. The perception of the grounds were transient and changing, as visible land one day can become submerged in the next.

Persistent Muddiness Despite the burgeoning fishing industry and rapidly expanding settlement, the extent of built settlement at the time was limited due to the challenging muddiness of the ground and its tendency to soften into sludge. In fact, when such settlements were later demolished in late 1970s, the earthen ooze revealed underneath the elevated structures indicated a persistence of wetness in the earth throughout a century of occupation in the littoral margin. upper: Steveston, 1908 lower: demolished house, 1977 Richmond City Archives

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docks on piles, 1890, Richmond City Archives

fishing boat, 1890, Richmond City Archives 27

boardwalk settlement on Steveston, 1898, Richmond City Archives 28

1900: COLONIZATION AND INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE_ clay dikes + agriculture fields +

FIELD MEDIATION + stabilization + porous + fragile + devastating + ambiguous + volatile

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Colonization: Intensive Agriculture The soils on Lulu Island were enrichened each time the Fraser River overwashes it with sediment from the Rocky Mountains and each time the tide lapsed forth nutrients from the Pacific Ocean. As a result, the soils were found fertile and suitable for agricultural production. As more and more immigrants were attracted to Vancouver, and subsequently to Lulu Island, many settled permanently and began agricultural practices. Over three quarters of Lulu Island was designated as agricultural land until recent decades.

Clay Dikes and Transposing Grounds As newcomers on Lulu Island changed from industrial and mercantile workers to immigrants from across Europe and Asia, their landscape practice and the relationship to land and water also changed. Rectangular, waterlogged land parcels were demarcated with newly built roads, purchased by newcomers who toiled to cultivate them. A new level of stability was needed for those new farming practice to ensure the protection of crops and harvests. To achieve this, clay dikes were commissioned and erected. Dredgers could be seen near the dikes, dredging up clayey deposits from watery bottoms and dumping them onto the dikes under construction.

Aqueous Fields The diking efforts were sporadic and varying, based on the enthusiasm of landowners with occasional aid from provincial or federal entities. Consequently, it was not very effective. While some farmers managed to make a living out of their fields, standing water and flooding remained a persistent and pressing issue. Freshet floods, such as the flood of 1954 shown on the right, left standing water on the center of the island for over a month after the rain event, during which the fields were soaked and untillable.

Aerial documentation after flood, 1954 Richmond City Archives

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breakwater in the Fraser River, Richmond City Archives

dredger used in building dike, 1908, Richmond City Archives 31

building clay dike, 1908, Richmond City Archives 32

1970: DRYLAND ECONOMY_

+

perimeter dike seepage slough + ditch urban development +

+

INVESTED LINES + linear + continuous + homogeneous + definite + static + rigid

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Globalization: Dryland Economy

Today, the demographics of Lulu Island is over 60 percent immigrants, the most diverse municipality in Canada. The island has undergone rapid transformations in the past three decades due to the global migration shifts. As a result, the coveted real estate market of Metro Vancouver was a lucrative incentive to significantly remould the landscape of Lulu Island. Today, most land that can be cost-effective to drained for development are highly urbanized and peopled.

Shaping Terra Firma

Conventional residential typologies in North America, suburban or urban, are dependent on rigid foundations and stable grounds. Such is the case on Lulu Island. The muddy ground conditions on the island were antithetical to this typology and its dryland narrative. A collective effort aimed to rectify this condition — a perimeter dike, was installed to permanently isolate dry land from open water. Pumps expel excess water to maintain this isolation while a network of ditches controls the water table inland. People’s historical affinity for water was severed by the dike. Gradually, dry land became commonplace as past littoral struggles were erased from the collective consciousness.

Resistant Grounds

There are still patches of persistent sogginess in between the hardened surface of Lulu Island. The most waterlogged grounds, which amounts to half of the island, is still designated as agricultural land despite mounting development pressure. This mosaic delineation between developement and agriculture can still be seen today as a narrative of the perpetual reconciliation between people and water. upper: Steveston, 2017 Josef Hanu lower: Blueberry field, 1977 Richmond City Archives

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engineering document of dike improvement , 1979, Richmond City Hall

engineering document of ditch, 1992, Richmond City Hall 35

engineering document of pump , 1973, Richmond City Hall 36

LITTORAL GROUNDS AND SETTLEMENT_

11,300

Ephemeral

Point Fixity

+ aqueous + pliable + undifferentiated + ebb + accumulating + dynamic

+ transient + flexible + eroding + oozy + sinking + shifting

10,500

10,000 Indigenous seasonal settlement + European settlement at Steveston + past streams Lulu + Island

+ muddy deltic soil

5,000 years ago

Taking a step back to examining Lulu Island on a geological time scale, the delta in which the Island sits on is very young and fluid. The nature of its ground remains unconsolidated and malleable to littoral forces throughout indigenous and most periods of European occupation. Only in recent decades did this fluctuating terrain became bounded in place. during this process, the narrative of the land and its relationship to its inhabitants has also evolved and intensified. This tension between two competing narratives - one dynamic and mutable; the another stable and permant, have drastically reorganized the littoral space through time.

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Field Mediations

Invested Lines

+ stabilization + porous + fragile + devastating + ambiguous + volatile

+ linear + continuous + homogeneous + definite + static + rigid

+ mud transport jettied into open sea + urban expansion

+ perimeter dike + urbanization + shipping channel

+ diking efforts

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PRESENT LITTORAL REACH_

snow geese, shorebirds [killdeer, dowitches, knots, yellowlegs, godwits]

SPRING

Canada geese

SUMMER

trumpeter swans, snow geese, shorebirds, dabbling ducks

FALL

trumeter swan, dabbling ducks

WINTER

open sea

d si elta lt sl fro ip n t

A critical understanding of the true reach of water on Lulu Island is intrinsic to understanding its potential reach in the future. The water presently surrounds the island in multiple directions. In a lateral direction, the seawater lapses against the seaward dike while the Fraser River surrounds its other three sides. The water also encloses the island in a vertical sense. Due to its nature as a young delta, unconsolidated substrates amount up to 200 meters beneath the surface. Within those stratas and in send lenses, trapped old sea water has already encircles the entire island from below. The reluctant dryness of the current island surface despite centuries of efforts is a result of this uncompromising geography.

+

50m

sea valley

sand flat -3.0-1.5m

tr in adi di tio ge n no al us fish te ing ch w te no e in mp di o lo irs ge ra gy no ry us se ha ttle bi me ta n tio ts n

+ +

mud flat marsh

1.5-3.2m 3.2-4.8m + + ++ +

lin e

+

sa

ed

lin e

+

+

+

Lulu Isalnd

ns

le

p pu 0. erim m 5m e pa p s t tc ab er l d ov ik ay e e di H ke H W

nd

er

at

w

sa

a

n

er i

d

ol

at

w

fe r

ui

aq

pp

tra

se

ge

ed

w

c 12 ano 0 es km lo in ugh 18 s 50 s

sa

p p 0. erim 5m e pa um bo s t e a tc p hi r ab r st dw ov dik lay or a e e ic lk di al o H ke H tid n W al pil fla es t

“Geography is destiny.”

– Napoléon Bonaparte

avg. 1m above sea level 13.5m dredged

+++

Fraser

0.7M SEA LEVEL RISE + arterial street grid + sea level rise inundation

+ perimeter dike

+ opportunistic habitats

+ ephemeral ponds + sea level rise inundation

+ historical Fraser River channel + historical stream + cultural anticipation

The occurrance of inundation in the near future happens to overlap with areas where historical streams and past Fraser River channel were recorded.

2.0M

2.5M

4.0M

FUTURE LITTORAL REACH_ Landscapes constantly shift and change in response to environmental changes. Lulu Island, the diked island sitting on average just one meter above sea level, is at the mercy of the rising sea. As the sea level rise inundation analysis shows, striking contrasts in one moment can be face complete erasure in the next. This fact poses a central, perhaps defining, question for my design premise: When does a site cease to exist as a site? When it meets a survey line drawn generation ago? When its contents cease to be visible to the eye and becomes ‘empty’?

Does a site and its littoral actants have agency in defining their own littoral gradients and territories?

Those questions form the inquiry in which I start to examine littoral dynamisms and its material narrative on the island.

+ envisioning new littoral relationships

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SITE: LITTORAL DYNAMISMS_

To understand the current littoral conditions and processes, I visited the seaward facing west dike of Lulu Island.

Immediately one can sense the defining characters of the island: its incredible flatness and the an immersive experience of an expansive horizon and uninterrupted sky.

decommissioned radar tower in the mud flat

+

The materiality of the diked interface is enchanting, ephemeral and everchanging.

During summertime the marshes are vibrant, drifting, undulating and variegated, tucked by the toe of the dike.

marsh

dike

seepage slough

+

residential

+

+ +

Yet, during wintertime the same marshes transforms into a homogenous, rustling mass expanding endlessly beneath the horizon as far your eyes can see.

marsh

dike

residential

seepage slough

+ + + +

Marshlands that are malleable in nature is observed here in distinct parallel bands, pliant to the linear order of the dike. Despite its dynamic transformations, the materiality of the dike is inherently oriented towards this cultural boundary - a line drawn to keep out the sea.

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Here we can see the negotiating boundaries between the littoral process and the constructed boundary through the displacement vegetation, tidal wrack, and pools of water backed up from the toe of the dike.

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The ground itself also experiences a dynamic transformation throughout the seasons.

Grounds that are parch dry in the summer....

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...gradually becomes soggy and eventually submerged during the wet season.

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ephemeral swamp

+

57

Swamps quickly emerge and establish in former open lawns when wetness rises. There is a diverse range of ephemeral yet vivid transformation of materiality and dampness throughout the water cycle - at times not aligned with the weather or the season.

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This unsettling yet fascinating mismatch between cultural use and phenomenology of the material ground shows the inevitability of a renegotiated and reimagined future littoral interface.

+

ephemeral pond +

opportunistic wildlife

emerging pond +

inland groundwater wrack line +

fine organic debris +

trash debris + reedy debris +

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retracing wetness extent

+

ambiguity between land and water

+

submerged foundation

+

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ephemeral pond

+

marsh advancing edge

+

turf grass +

This cycle also adds a layer of material richness to a previously greened but bleak open space and creates a wet inland pocket conducive to avian habitation, which is presently associated only with agricultural fields and the marshes beyond the perimeter dike.

aqueous upwelling

+

MATERIAL ACCUMULATION AND DEGRADATION_ The current littoral logic is a conventional coastline, delineated with a static line drawn between the land and the sea. Growing up near the island, this coastal demarcation, in particular the west-facing sea dike, has always fascinated me with both its material enchantment and its inevitable fragility in the future. To understand the littoral dynamisms of the present coast, the relationship between materials actively accumulating and degrading was studied.

+

large woody debris Ø > 1’ - 0”

perimeter dike +

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+ tidal extent

+ sandflat extent

+ mudflat extent accumulation diagram extent

+ marsh extent

1979 marsh advancing edge +

current marsh advancing edge +

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The most awestruck experience along the diked interface were the swathes of large timbers that have escaped their storage ponds in the Fraser River during storms and were flung up against the dike by powerful tidal forces. Both woody debris and erosional damages were meticulously amended through ongoing dike maintenance. The material accumulation and removal at the dike interface reflects not only a physical processes but also a cultural attitude and practice in maintaining the invested line.

SCALES OF ACCUMULATION_

small woody debris & reedy debris

British Columbia

+

licensed tree farms +

Fraser River watershed + large woody debris +

Fraser River +

+ Lulu Island

This woody accumulation occurs simultaneously at a multitude of scales. On a regional scale, timber throughout the Fraser River watershed have been harvested and floated down the Fraser River to mills and port in tugboat log drives for decades. On a micro scale, large woody debris act as anchors that facilitate the accumulation of smaller mobile woody debris and reedy plant debris.

Log drive of Western Lumber Company, 1980s Richmond City Archives

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DESIGN: NEGOTIATING A LITTORAL FUTURE_

drowned dike rim of Lulu Atoll +

inner littoral reach

+ outer littoral reach

+

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LULU ATOLL_ Atoll noun

1. A type of island consisting of a ribbon reef that nearly or entirely surrounds a lagoon and supports, in most cases, one to many islets on the reef platform.

The curation of the future landscape narrative on Lulu Island hinges upon process both gradual — such as the incremental rise of seawater and groundwater, and episodic — such as the moment when the dike is submerged. As the perimeter dike of Lulu Island, an invested rim maintaining the present binary separation between dry land and open water, becomes intertidal and eventually submerged, the landscape narrative for Lulu Island in the future will unfold as a gradual transition from Lulu Island to Lulu Atoll.

“There is no end, no grand scheme for these agents of change, just a cumulative directionality towards future becoming. It is in this productive and active sense that ecology and creativity speak not of fixed and rigid realities, but of movement, passage, genesis, and autonomy, of propulsive life unfolding in time” – James Corner, “Terraflexis”

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+ uneven brim

+ multiplying inner reach

+ shifting edge

intensified margin +

+ rim

+ lagoon + outer reach seawater driven

ITERATING THE ATOLL_ + inner reach riverine and groundwater driven

The atoll is a unique island typology that is moderated by a hardened rim. This rim typology closely resembles Lulu Island’s future of being encircled by a submerged rim, regulating and dissipating the flow of river and sea water entering the island.

The littoral boundary as an invested line is abstracted and multiplied into many lines that flux with littoral forces. Those lines are contextualized based on its location as inner and outer reaches.

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Lulu Island

Lulu Atoll interdidal breakwater rim

dike pumps

upgrade

failure decreased effectiveness as water table rises

ditches and canals

daylighting muddy terrain managed retreat & mass exodus after groundwater floods

residential development pilot projects Lulu Island

submerged breakwater rim benthic scores & recreational boating sloughs

emergent creeks attract beavers back abandonment

beavers as hydrologic driver

recycled materials and structures

Lulu Atoll

low density model floating community and pile based ecotourism development main channel shift

returning salmon run interdidal breakwater rim

dike pumps

upgrade

failure decreased effectiveness as water table rises

submergedofbreakwater rim recolonization wetland plants benthic scores & recreational boating sloughs

ditches and canals The unfolding of the atoll narrative revolves around several key events. The shift from Lulu Island to Lulu Atoll occurs whenOuter the dike Reach daylighting muddy terrain emergent creeks attract beavers back beavers as hydrologic driver fails.

As the dike rim becomes intertidal and eventually subtidal.

The littoral dynamics between the inside and the outside of the current managed retreat & mass exodus after groundwater floods abandonment recycled materials and structures residential development dredge cycles dike isIsland radically transformed. There will likely be an exodus of people as the water ingulfs theaccumulating island from both the sea and theLulu ground. pilot projects low density model floating community and pile based ecotourism development Lulu Atoll sediment captured from dredge materials and acretion main channel shift returning salmon run New inhabitants will arrive, such as beavers, halophytes and salmon, are encouraged to occupy the new terrain asserted by the waters. atoll building interdidal breakwater rim submergedofbreakwater rim dike recolonization wetland plants accumulating driftwood and organic debris for habitat building Those will drastically shape the land and its biotic composition. pumps new actantsupgrade failure daylighting muddy terrain residential development dredge cycles lowland depressions pilot projects atoll building

benthic scores & recreational boating sloughs

decreased effectiveness as water table rises

ditches and canals

managed retreat & mass exodus after groundwater floods

emergent creeks attract beavers back abandonment

groundwater rise indicator atolls main channel shift

high water festivals attracting key community actors

recycled materials and structures

Outer Reach Inner Reach

beavers as hydrologic driver

low density modelbeds, floating community and pools, pile based ecotourism development shellfish salmon aclimation tidepools, halophyte pockets accumulating sediment captured from dredge materials and acretion returning salmon run recolonization of wetland plants halophyte harvest volunteers accumulating driftwood and organic debris for habitat building accumulating rim from wrack debris

mobilizing communities boating docks

boardwalks

Outer Reach

boating docks

boardwalks

Inner Reach

The outer reach of Lulu Atoll engages with the dredge cycles of the Fraser River with the aim to build marsh habitat. The current shipInner Reach dredge cycles ping channels in the Fraser River are protected by jetties. However, those jetties also funnel shellfish fine sediment away from the marshes and lowland depressions groundwater rise indicator atolls beds, sediment salmon aclimation tidepools, halophyte pockets accumulating captured pools, from dredge materials and acretion directly into the open sea. Sediment starved, the marshes are presently degrading. Reiterating the formation of an atoll, fine sediments high water festivals atoll building captured through littoral driftactors from dredge operations mobilizing form accreting for marsh migration as sea communities rims and ground conditions suitable attracting key community halophyte harvest volunteers accumulating driftwood and organic debris for habitat building accumulating rim from wrack debris level rises. lowland depressions

groundwater rise indicator atolls

shellfish beds, salmon aclimation pools, tidepools, halophyte pockets

high water festivals attracting key community actors

mobilizing communities

halophyte harvest volunteers accumulating rim from wrack debris boating docks

boardwalks

The inner reach of Lulu Atoll engages with people and their perception of the littoral spaces and transformations. In particular, it engages the seasonal riverine cycle and the elusive groundwater cycle. The atoll form and rim are used to reframe mundane nuisances, such as inland flooding, into a novel and probing phenomenon. By inhabiting and exploring those curious landscapes, a new sense of the island’s geography and littoral relationships can be cultivated for future generations. The landscapes created can be adapted in the future to sea level rise as habitat niches and a foundation for possible recreation opportunities.

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+ Fraser River middle arm domestic dredging 6m

aqueous grounds

+

75

seasonal sloughs

+ Fraser River south arm deep sea dredging 6m

+

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INNER REACH_ The littoral zone is a wide zone of dynamism and indeterminacy between land and water. Although the surface of the island has been hardened for human settlement, the littoral forces still have a strong material presence. The narrative of the dike limits the perception of littoral spaces to the open sea and the river. By limiting the interface of water to surface water lapsing around lines, it impacts how people perceive water and limits its potential for future iterations.

The strategies of reintroducing hidden littoral narratives take the rainwater and groundwater cycles and use techniques such as exaggeration, amplification, distillation, condensation, juxtaposition and displacement to present a reevaluated ground to the residents.

As those novel ground qualities and littoral process become internalized as the new ordinary, this newfound landscape literacy can give agency to the next generation of organizations and emerging community leaders to garner the means needed to prepare the lowland communities for sea level rise.

school year: 1yr dredge cycle: 1yr bird migration: 1yr salmon cycle: 4 yr political cycle: 4 yr maple wood decay: 5 yr major storm: 10 yr conifer wood decay (halflife): 20 yr generation: 25 yr pump upgrade: 30 yr house (wood): 35 yr dike upgrade : 50 yr Douglas fir decay: 50 yr Western Red Ceder decay: 100 yr sea level rise

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+ urban development

school community center

To engage with the daily lives of the residents, pocket green spaces close to schools and community centers where daily life unfolds were selected. They are deemed suitable locations for applying site strategies.

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+ 2.0m sea level rise

+ anchialine pool

+

r

a os er e nd pin po a s os nu er Pi ond p

la yl ph k ro c te mlo he e a nh ug er Ts est w is ns he tc e si uc a pr ce s Pi itka S +

+ acclimating salmon smolt

ta or e nt in co p s ole nu p Pi dge lo a da at ce ic pl red a uj ern Th est w

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+ + +

POINT INSERTIONS_ Pocket parks are green spaces within the city where people gather to enjoy their leisure time and a space for community events and activities. The point insertion strategy utilizes simple strategies such as amplifying micro topographies to bring forth a rich and varying material palette shaped by littoral forces. This transient groundscape is juxtaposed with timber insertions that anchors the site and provide a datum. The wood is sourced from escaped forest timbers that are washed up the shore annually by littoral forces and are actively removed to maintain the dike. The littoral narrative is extended inland by transposing materials most associated with the present littoral margin — both found and living, into inland urban spaces. By intersecting the groundwater cycle with cultural cycle, the gradual inundation in accent depressions and the change of vegetation from turf to wetland plants over time will reshape not only the material qualities of everyday spaces but also a perception of the landscape as transient and changing.

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81

+ timber insertion + seasonally mowned path + micro landforms + birch planting

+ groundwater

+ marsh slough

+ clam bed

+ mature birch fallen by beavers 82

docks +

boardwalk system +

+ ephemeral pond + 2.0m sea level rise

+ submerged gravel bed

+ marshes

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+ ephemeral creek

EPHEMERAL RIM_ The unpredictable sunny day flooding is one of the strangest yet most telling phenomenon of the ground. The ephemeral rim is a design strategy that highlights this littoral process. The rim is a rainwater reservoir lined at the bottom with varying depth of rocks, gravel and bare earth. When the rain event fills the pool to the brim, the water will percolate and evaporate at varying rates, creating patterns of accentuated wetness. Ephemeral creeks will appear after rain events and freshet season, creating more quality recreation spaces for the communities. As the island becomes inundated and submerged with sea level rise, the varied substrates will provide enhanced conditions for fish habitats — an acclimating zone for millions of salmon smolts and other fish species annually.

+ groundwater

+ upwelling

+ rain event

+ delayed drying

+ ephemeral creek

+ ephemeral patterns

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+ +

ea

c na

di

un ar is ar m al 4.2 Ph .0 4 ei by ng ly m ex .8 ar 3 C .5 3 us

m iti ar m us 5m rip 3.

Sc .0 3

d k be ee el l cr av ra gr me rim phe e

t en m nk ba igh em 2’ h 1

e at nd u ck in do ds & n k ou al gr dw er ar aft bo uilt b

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+ + +

+

+ embankment

+ +

+

+ rim + low point

+ silty overwash + sandy deposit

d k be ee el l cr av ra gr me rim phe e

us m iti ar m us 5m rip 3.

Sc .0 3

ei by ng ly m ex .8 ar 3 C .5 3

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87

FIELD RELATIONS_

The cumulative effect of the island’s submerging process is the emergence of a new field condition. The land is no longer bound by street grids, the current mode of spatial logic governing the island’s processes. Instead, those invested lines will gradually be overtaken by a more amorphic and process-driven spatial logic as the aqueous ground wells up. As a result, a new cultural relationship with the littoral ground must be proposed. After a study of past cultural-littoral relationships, two typologies of occupying the littoral space while allowing for littoral movement stood out. First is the building typology on piles, where decades of cultural occupation elevated above a fluid ground was sustained enduringly yet minimally through point contact. It is a sustainable typology for developing a future recreation framework. Secondly, the fluctuating terrain is conducive to forming shallow slough networks after powerful overwashes, rendering the grounds suitable for boats and canoes to traverse, as it did for centuries past during indigenous occupation. While much of the island will be restrained from human development to ensure the integrity of the ecological habitats, strategic insertion of recreation and education opportunities, on gentler footprints, will continue to provide for the people through the cultivation of stewardship and the strengthening of the relationship between people and the land for the future generations living in metro Vancouver and beyond.

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The conventional building typologies on the island will be replaced with galleries. Galleries will be elevated over a fluctuating terrain to lead a procession of views and frame a Pacific horizon familiar to people who frequent Lulu Island. Those galleries will serve as a refuge for curious explorers, an information center during bird and salmon migration season, and a space of gathering for events, festivals, classes, volunteer meetings and other group activities.

89

90

91

+ lodged woody debris

+ anchoring structure

+ landform

OUTER REACH_ The outer reaches of Lulu Atoll encounter a complex set of cultural and physical littoral forces. Atolls here will be formed to replenishing the sediment-starved delta flat by reassembling materials presently considered as waste, such as escaped timbers that were washed ashore or the four million cubic yards of Fraser River dredge materials dumped annually into the open sea. Those timbers will be repurposed on-site to build pile anchoring structures to trap mobile debris and accrue sediment through littoral drift. As the atolls acrete through an ongoing process of accumulating dredge sediment, the brackish marshes unique to this island and in danger of drowing out completely before the dike fails will be able to migrate onto those new grounds and have the chance to adapt to future sea level rise.

92

us

a m

m iti ar m us 5m rip 3.

Sc .0 3 ei by ng ly m ex .8 ar 3 C .5 3 iti

ar m in ch m lo .0 ig 4 Tr .8 3

ia ol tif la m a 3 ph 4. r Ty 0 be 4. tim d pe ca 8” g es > lo Ø ee tr e ur -6 at 2” = Ø m

+ small atoll 350m spacing

+ landforming

+ medium atoll 500m spacing + landform

+ trumpeter swans + + + + + +

+ dabbling ducks

+ +

r be tim d pe g lo ca 8” es > ree Ø et ur -6 at 2” m = a Ø ce na di un ar is ar m al 4.2 Ph .0 4

a m

iti

ar m in ch m lo .0 ig 4 Tr .8 3

us an

ei by ng ly m ex .8 ar 3 C 5us 3. m iti ar m us m rip .5 Sc .0-3 3

ic er am us 0m rip 3.

Sc .6 2

+ large atoll 1000m spacing

+ + + + +

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The form of the atolls responds to the nature of the tides washing in and out perpendicular to the dike shore.

Instead of a linear formation, which backsides are subjected to direct tidal backwash as the tides retreat, a triangular field with an intensified front protecting calmer interstitial waters against backwash is placed facing the dike and the island.

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CONCLUSION_ The next 50 years will be decades of major change for Lulu Island in face of climate change and sea level rise. Even so, my research of past cultural-littoral relationships has suggested that drastic landscape modification has always been the norm on the island for the decades since colonization. With every modification comes a reinvisioning of how a particular culture wants relates to nature. Up until 1860, the island was percieve as ephemeral and bountiful, traversed for needs of sustenance. In the late 19th century, mercantile forces from Britain began to occupy the water’s edge to export resources. In early 20th century, the allure of land drew colonizers who began to drain the land. By late 20th century, extensive hardscaping unimaginable just a few decades prior became commonplace.

My design research thesis aims to challenge our age of technocratic problem-solving by emphasizing process - whether it is about culture, phenomenonlogy, material or representation. It is paramount that this design thesis is not about finding an absolute formal solution, a uptopian or dystopian masterplan or the correct “anwser” to this complex problem. Rather, it seeks to frame a new landscape narrative by using simple formal logics - points, lines and fields, to create a coherent gestalt embedded within locally complex landscapes. The outcome aims to accentuate, experience and celebrate the dynamic natural forces that are unmappable yet ever-present, while being adaptable to a diverse range of site dimensions and conditions found on the island.

It is my optimism to believe that people, when they have the opportunity to be both informed and inspired, will have the agency to act in their best interests. Our roles as landscape architects does not only pertain to reshape physical landscapes, but also in negotiating people’s relationships with the dynamisms of their environment.

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REFERENCES_ All images without in-text credits are created by the author. + Armstrong, J. E. (1984). Environmental and engineering applications of the surficial geology of the Fraser Lowland, British Columbia.

Ottawa, Canada: Geological Survey of Canada. + Benedict, A. D., & Gaydos, J. K. (2015). The Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books. + Balke, E (2017). Investigating the role of elevated salinity in the recession of a large brackish marsh in the Fraser River estuary (Master’s thesis). Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. + Bennett, J. (n.d.). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. + Blunden, R. (1975). Historical geology of the Lower Fraser River valley. Vancouver: Dept. of Geological Sciences, University of British Columbia. + Bocking, Richard C (1997). Mighty river: a portrait of the Fraser. Douglas & McIntyre ; Seattle, WA : University of Washington Press, Vancouver + Bucher, A., (2014). Topology: Topical Thoughts on the Contemporary Landscape. Berlin: JOVIS Verlag. + Cantrell, B. E. (2017). RESPONSIVE LANDSCAPES: Strategies for responsive technologies in landscape architecture. S.l.: Routledge. + Carlson, K., McHalsie, A. J., & Stó:lō Heritage Trust. (2001). A Stó:lō-Coast Salish historical atlas. Vancouver + Clague, John & L. Luternauer, John & Hebda, Richard. (2011). Sedimentary environments and postglacial history of the Fraser Delta and lower Fraser Valley, British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 20. 1314-1326. 10.1139/e83-116. r: Douglas & McIntyre + Cunha, D. D. (2019). The invention of rivers: Alexanders eye and Gangas descent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. + Dunn, S., Felsen, M., Allen, S., McMorrough, J., & Grimes, E. (2017). Bowling: Water, architecture, urbanism. San Francisco, CA: Applied Research and Design. + Fraser River Estuary Study: A joint project of the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia. (1981). Victoria, B.C.: Govt. of British Columbia. + Gissen, D. (2009). Subnature: Architectures other environments. New York: Princenton Architectural.

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+ Groulx, B. J. (2004). Fraser River delta, British Columbia: Issues of an urban estuary. Ottawa: Geological Survey of Canada. + Holten, K., & Burton, B. (2007). Katie Holten: Paths of desire. St. Louis, MO: Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. + Kahn, A., & Burns, C. J. (2005). Site matters: Design concepts, histories, and strategies. New York: Routledge. + Lievesley. (2017). Marsh and Riparian Habitat Compensation in the Fraser River Estuary: A Guide for Managers and Practitioners.

42pp + vii + Lynch, K. (2009). What time is this place? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. + Margolis, L., & Robinson, A. (2010). Living systems: Innovative materials and technologies for landscape architecture. Basel: BirkhaĚˆuser. + Mathur, A. (2014). Design in the terrain of water. USA: Applied Research and Design Publishing. + Mathur, A., & Cunha, D. D. (2006). Deccan traverses: The making of Bangalores terrain. New Delhi: Rupa. + Mathur, A., & Cunha, D. D. (2001). Mississippi floods: Designing a shifting landscape. New Haven (Conn.): Yale University Press. + Mathur, A., & Cunha, D. D. (2009). SOAK: Mumbai in an estuary. New Delhi: Rupa. + Metz, T., & Heuvel, M. V. (2012). Sweet & salt: Water and the Dutch. Rotterdam: NAI. + Meyer, E. K. (2008). Sustaining beauty. The performance of appearance. Journal of Landscape Architecture, 3(1), 6-23. doi:10.1080/ 18626033.2008.9723392 + Mossop, E. (2019). Sustainable coastal design and planning. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group. + Mostafavi, M. (2016). Ecological urbanism. Lars Muller. + Pleijster, E., & Veeken, C. V. (2014). Dutch dikes. Rotterdam: Nai100. + Shannon, K. (2008). Water urbanisms. Amsterdam: SUN. + Spirn, A. W. (2000). The language of landscape. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. + Waldheim, C. (2006). The landscape urbanism reader. New York: Princeton.

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