A Dusty Reality: Ramifications Of A Sand Crisis

Location: Laguna Beach, CA

Typology: Industrial

Program: Sand Factory

Advisor: Cara Liberatore, Evan Farley

Each year 6.3 million tourists visit the small seaside town of Laguna Beach, California. The town of 20,000 residents generates upwards of $700 million dollars in tourism revenue annually. Why the appeal? Because of the sandy beaches dot the seven-mile coastline.

When we arrive in Laguna, the year is 2025. We shake up some margaritas and make our way down to the beach. Soon, we realize that the beach isn’t much of a beach at all. It has been slowly eroding due to the increased frequency of large swells and storms, pulling the pristine sand back into the depths of the ocean. Since the 1920s, there have been replenishment programs on a 5-7 year cycle; with sand coming from large labor intensive ocean dredging projects. These initiatives have become too costly for Laguna to undego and have been funded mainly through top-down bills from Congress. These programs provide the needed sand replenishment - but at a cost upwards of $200 million. The last project has not been funded in over 20 years.

Our vacation now ventures into an alternative truth, a truth that verges on the plausible rather than the implausible, a world as it might be. We make our way back to the hotel pool. One of us is blinded by a highly reflective surface from a nearby residence.

The homeowners of Laguna had grown flustered with the lack of action from Congress. And, through a bold, and bottom-up collective, decided to create their own sand, through a city-wide sand-making initiative—an all-hands-on-deck method that would revitalize the beaches, parcel by parcel.

We stop by the hotel concierge to inquire about more information. They tell us that this future world involves a direct sand-to-cash relationship. With homeowners being incentivized when they relinquish their adjacent land, and sometimes even their homes to the sand factory program. An anti-tourism enthusiast had produced a series of videos that show how the project might unfold over the next 200 years by producing videos at 50-year intervals.

2025 the story starts as discreetly as possible. With basements and attics of residences being converted to miniature mining machines. A desalination plant, disguised as a lifeguard tower, is set up along the coastal edge, and pipes begin moving gallons of fresh water to residences up the hill. Workers start to arrive in buses disguised as VW beach buggies. Rocks arrive from local home redevelopment projects, slowly extracting the natural resources within close proximity.

2075 As the machines grow, the residences start to shake and the sound becomes ear-piercing. Soon, the homeowners realize that their suburban single family home typology is conducive to occupying the empty space that exists between, beside and adjacent to one another. As the machines ramp up, Laguna quickly sets up an official noise ordinance. Machines are now only able to run on a 30 minutes on, 90 minutes off cycle.

Our conversation with the concierge gets interrupted as one of the nearby machine’s turns on. They proceed with the story, but now speaking a bit louder. But before they continue, they mention that the residents of Laguna had to approve this entire initiative. It was a lengthy process. And started with Laguna distributing 1,250 lbs of sand to each of its residences. Allowing them to fully comprehend what it’s like to live with sand between their toes, even in our most private spaces.

2115 and the first cycle of the day is about to begin. Phase 1 had extracted all the rocks in close proximity. Now, large 100 mile long pipes have been set up, sucking rocks from the depths of the ocean floor. As the machines turn on, the conveyor belt shoots rocks from factory to factory. There are now 5 machines in total, the vibrating feeder, the impact crusher, the cone crusher, the vibrating screen, and the sand washing factory. This quantity and density of sand replenishment produces a large amount of soot, and it begins to accumulate on the structures themselves. As a result, the facades are built of a slick metal in order to collect every last parcel of sand created.

By now, the rims of our margaritas have started to accumulate a fair amount of soot. Although the salt and soot mixture is still appealing to some, it does not go unnoticed.

2175 Rocks are now brought in weekly from Japan on trans-pacific tankers. Almost all of the residences are now simply facades that recollect the studio lots one hour north in the city of Hollywood. As the noise and soot increased, residents hid their factories behind curtains of their existing homes, trying to remember what life used to look like. As the sand incentives became too good, now only one resident lives in this neighborhood.

2225 and the city wide air filtration system kicks on, providing the necessary “humm” sound that allows the workers to drain out the ringing as they try to get some shut eye. The salty air, ear piercing sound and dust have eroded the timber frame residences; all that is left are the concrete pylons covered with copious amounts of pristine sand.

The concierge is no longer visible. Their voice has been drained out from surrounding machines, and sand has accumulated up to our ankles. The concierge reminds us that this is all for us, the factories, the workers, the sand - for the conservation and enjoyment of the pristine sand of Laguna Beach, California.

Location: Miami, Florida

Typology: Communal

Program: Oceanography Institute

Advisor: Silvia Acosta

The pier at the Miami harbor is a hub for oceanography and student exploration. Four hefty columns hold up the entirety of the pier, and each column studies a specific phenomenon: ocean, sky, wind, and rain. As the bay ebbs and flows throughout the day, the pier rises out the water, allowing swimmers to venture beneath.

Interior column - water 024 exterior entrance

Interior column - sky 025

Interior column - rain 026 interior column - wind

Interior column - water 023

Interior column - wind 027

Tasked to design a multifamily residence in Washington Park, Providence, on a 3,200 SF lot, we prioritized six actions for human inhabitation: a place to sleep, a place to work, a place to wash, a place to eat, and a place to socialize. The two units interlock with each other and create simultaneous moments of presence and absence-through transparent mask facades. The units sit diagonally on the site, following a hypothetical diagonal grain.

Location: Almeria, Spain

Typology: Agriculture

Program: Greenhouse

Advisor: Arno Brandlhuber

Our studio was based in the province of Andalucia, which is located along the southern coast of Spain and has the largest concentration of greenhouses in the world. The town has a significant water problem and is currently on track to run out of potable water in the next 15 years. Through a PPP or public-private partnership, we devised a 35-kilometer desalinization pipe that uses the hot Spanish sun to evaporate saltwater. The line runs through the streets of Almeria while also providing numerous opportunities for personal entrepreneurship underneath for local farmers and business owners.