Regional Climate Adaptation and Urbanism Research Studio

Catalog description

This design research studio explores climate adaptation strategies for the Gulf Coast, focusing on innovative spatial planning. Facing a changed climate, a landscape impacted by ongoing land loss, and centuries of inequity and poor communities susceptible to ongoing environmental justice issues, this studio is conceived as advancing a vision for the Gulf Coast that grapples with oil legacy infrastructure, affected communities and their health and a changing coastline with ongoing environmental challenges. The goal of this interdisciplinary research studio is to help students understand how ecological and hydrological restoration, climate mitigation, and opportunities presented by the energy transition can combine across the territory in different sites and scales. Through reimagining practices, this studio also aims to expand the concept of Gulf Coast working landscapes that considers public health, equity, and labor practices. Students are expected to put forward multi-scalar scenario-based proposals to answer the following research questions: What will the Gulf Coast look like in 2050 with spatial strategies that embrace social and ecological improvements? What will the reduction of fossil-fuel energy consumption and increased opportunities for renewable energy production and carbon sequestration look like in the built environment at the regional, metropolitan, and architectural scales? What are the new economies that might emerge from these improvements that also support resilient and healthy communities and habitats?