Miami Beach

MIAMI BEACH the project on south florida

HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN OFFICE FOR URBANIZATION FALL 2015

ADVANCED SEMINAR GSD 09142 ROSETTA S. ELKIN

working draft- not for distribution

25.8130° N, 80.1341° W

The emergent topic of urban adaptation to the effects of climate change is among the most pressing areas of research for those engaged in the built environment. This has led to a profusion of projects centered on resolutions and solutions that tend to stress vaguely articulated notions of green infrastructure– grey infrastructure with soft intentions. While post-storm New Orleans and New York have provided unique contexts for the advancement of disciplinary knowledge, professional practices and societalengagement, projects remain dependent on large hydrological engineering systems, so that cities continue to resist the realities of their coastal geography, hydrology and geology. Among the more extreme cases in this regard is the present status and uncertain future of South Florida’s coastal communities. As part of The Harvard GSD project on South Florida, this research seminar will use the greater Miami area as case in point,exploring the patterns of sea level variation on the economy and identity of Miami Beach.

Rather than attempting to postulate a linear history, or a cohesive environmental narrative, the research will prioritize particular players and specific objects that have supported the construction of Miami, as an image, an ecosystem and a cultural artifact. Using a range of scales implicit to each study, individual research projects will help to elucidate how change is embedded with opportunity, optimistically engaging the territory of South Florida in ways that offer fresh perspectives and predictions.

Thomas Nideroest

COCOS THE SUCCESS OF THE EMBLEMATIC COCONUT TREE OR COCOS NUCIFERA, ENABLED THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION OF MIAMI AS A DESTINATION, ESTABLISHING A BOTANICAL RECOGNITION THAT REMAINS THE CENTER OF A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR RECREATION DESTINATION.

This is the story of an exotic plant species that traveled several thousand miles by sea to set land on the shores of Miami Beach, germinating and setting its roots for a hundred years. It is the story of how this one species – with the help of five wealthy promoters (Carson 1955) – was able to launch a transformation process from a mucky and wild mangrove swamp to the multi-million dollar tourist destination of today. By projecting through a 100 year timeline starting in 1870, I will historicize and unpack the development of modern Miami Beach, using the coconut as a main agent. This trajectory foregrounds three

main eras: “the 60 years of private promoters”, “the arrival of the professional hoteliers” into the current “modern city of Miami Beach”. The perception of the coconut as an early agricultural commodity and the ultimate changes throughout these three periods brings light to the ongoing process of urban transformation. This re-narration of Miami Beach can contribute to the current paradigm shift and dispute over sea level rise. Allowing for a broader discussion, I endorse productive plant species as part of the debate on “defense and adoption” strategies, creating an alternative imagination of Miami Beach.

Green Space Comparison - Spatial Dispersion of Coconuts

The history of Miami Beach starts with its geologic and geomorphologic formation, laying out Miami’s sandstone legacy and ecological features, explaining its vegetal coverage and soil conditions. This trajectory would certainly help to understand how sea level rise has always affected the Atlantic Coast. A similar reference could be drawn to the transformation of Cape Cod’s lagoon and Nantucket Shoals, which were once connected to the main land and are now part of the dynamic intertidal system (Berman 2015).

One may also choose to start the story with the first human inhabitation of the Native American tribe of the Tequesta Indians and later the Seminoles tribe (Small 1929). Both communities occupied the area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida, also known as Biscayne Bay. Each tribe had a direct relationship with the vegetation: vast saw grass carpets, the transitional oak hammocks and the mangrove fringes (1929).

The Tequesta’s did not directly practice any form of agriculture, as they mainly lived of the food provided by the ocean. However, they did gather a number of vegetables and grew them on higher elevations, which were tillable and produced vegetable crops even during the winter months (Carson 1955). Another way to start this paper could be with the arrival of the Spanish monarch in 1566, who sailed into Biscayne Bay where they erected a Jesuit mission at the mouth of the Miami River. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, sailed into the lagoon during high tide, he considered the whole basin including the Everglades as a vast lake which he called Lake Mayami (Small 1929).

Instead, this story begins with an anthropogenic history and spatial transformation of Miami Beach. It begins with the arrival and discovery of the coconut tree (Cocos nucifera). Initial research on whether the coconut is native to this area re-

Immigration of Coconuts to Miami Florida - 01

sulted in different theories. There is evidence for an Indo-Pacific origin either around Malaysia or the Indian Ocean (Jackson 2006,2011) (Grimwood, et al. 1975). Current efforts however, indicated that “the coconut originated in the coral atoll ecosystem without human intervention” (Harris and Clement 2013). This would provide evidence for the coconut’s resiliency and ability of long sea travel. A thick layer called husk protects the fruit’s coir, which is exploited for commercial applications. The husk protects the shell’s three germination pores (eyes or stoma) and increases the fruit’s floatation ability. These features allow the coconut to travel for thousands of miles. In the case of Miami Beach, it traveled across the Pacific Ocean to then land by chance on the southeastern Atlantic Coast of Florida, germinating near an old Warf at Miami Beach. This geographic location along the coast line provides evidence of a natural dispersion opposed to dispersion by seafaring people (2013).

In 1870, the northern visitors Henry B. Lum and

his son visited Miami and discovered these immigrant coconut palms (Carson 1955). This early encounter resulted in an avalanche of economic considerations. Twelve years later, the coconut as a non-native and exotic species was the first plant used as a mono-culture commercializing Miami Beach. In other words, the story of the coconut starts with the discovery and first land reclamation project of three wealthy visionaries: The Lummus brothers (J.N and J.E), John S. Collins with T.J Pancoast and Carl Graham Fisher, an American entrepreneur (1955).

The propagandists, 1870-1930 The establishment of the Lum-Osborn Coconut Planting Company was the first attempt to commercialize Miami Beach. The Lum’s purchased ocean-front land at 35 cents/ acre, which included the current Lummus Park area (1955). This initial undertaking had interested several others, including the main business partners Elnathan T. Field and Ezra Osborn (1955). The following year,

Immigration of Coconuts to Miami Florida - 02

the company set forth with the first coconut project and started the land reclamation near a natural clearing, now Lummus Park. Here, 38’000 coconuts were imported from Trinidad and planted at this now historic site (1955). The second shipment of about 117’000 coconuts came from Nicaragua and was planted on present North Beach Area, the former Biscayne house of Refuge. Further up North a third plantation of another 117’000 coconuts from Cuba found their way into the ground at the Hillsboro House of Refugee above Boca Raton (1955). Only four years later the financial resources were exhausted and the initial project failed. Historic reports mention that the Lum-Osborn Coconut Planting Company (including the sixty stockholders) failed because they underestimated the expenses of the project, ignoring transportation possibilities and marketing problems (1955). A further thought worth exploring is the fact that the business did not have proper agricultural training, underestimating cyclic and climatic dynamics, since Co-

conut trees only carry their first fruit after 5-6 years and reach peak production after about 20 years (75 – 100 coconuts a season) (Sarian 2011).

Miami’s climate however is not entirely tropical, which may also have led to negative effects during the sprouting and pollination season (Del Tredici 1990). Furthermore, the subtopic climate could potentially keep coconuts from ever reaching peak production.

This first failure brought forth one of the absent investors, a trained horticulturalist John Stiles Collins. Collins initially became interested in Miami Beach after the failure of the coconut project. His first arrival to Miami Bach is recorded to be the year 1890, three years after Lum’s coconut failure (Carson 1955). Carlson describes that Collins had a vision of beaches after setting foot onto the site, which he energetically pursued. Collins was interested in growing exotic fruits that were not offered on markets, knowing that he would need a number of commodities, as they would cross-finance his undertaking. In

1906, Collins becomes a landowner (buying out the initial land owners of the Coconut Planting Company) and started to clear his “five miles of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay (approx. 50 blocks today)” (Miami Beach 411 2015). In only three years, Collins managed to turn his reclaimed land into the world’s largest avocado grove, fortifying his land with rows of Australian pine tree (Casurina sp.) (Carson 1955, Lombard 2015).

In order to further improve his grove’s productivity, Collin initiated the first dredging project in 1911. T.J. Pancoast, Collins son-in-law, who came down south to support the family business, was overseeing the canal project from Lake Pancoast to Biscayne Bay (Carson 1955). It was that moment when Collins first anticipated Miami Beach’s future as place of real estate development, which led to the foundation of Miami Beach Improvement Company. Knowing that he needed to connect the “island” with the mainland, Collins commissioned the construction of Collins

Toll Bridge. The Lummus Brothers followed Collins lead and bought land south of Collins Avenue (Current Ocean Beach). Both parties were struggling with finances, which almost ended in another failure (1955). That’s when the patron Carl Graham Fisher came into the picture. Fisher was an American entrepreneur and known for his involvement in the automobile dealership and interstate Highway system (Dixie Highway).

Carl Fisher would lend Collins and the Lummus Brothers money in return of Miami Beach’s first real estate land (1955). During the transformation of Miami Beach from agricultural venture to real estate development, Charles Deering purchased 212 acres of land in Buena Vista (Fairchild 1938). Deering was an American businessman, art collector and philanthropist. His professional success allowed him to invest in art and natural sciences. In 1910 he became friends with David Fairchild, with whom he established an experimental planting statin of 25 acres at Buena Vista (Rothra 1995). At the same time, his

brother James started construction at Vizcaya, in the Coconut Grove District (Fairchild 1938).

Anticipating Miami Beach’s future development, Deering secured even more land further south along the coast at Old Cutler Road, where he in 1927 established the Deering Estate, a plot that included the largest virgin coast “tropical hardwood hammock” (Deering Estate at Cutler 2015).

His passion for exotic plants and especially palm trees is connected to the palm’s vast varieties, morphology and anatomy.

Palm Promotions The work of Harvard professor P.B Tomlinson, narrates the genus palm as the world’s most amazing plant, claiming them as record makers and in the biological trend towards gigantism (Tomlinson 2006). Palms produce the widest stems built on primary growth alone, they feature the larges self-supporting leaves and longest unrooted aerial stem. Palms produce the

largest seed and are the most easily transplanted trees in the world (2006). Further, the palm depends solely on primary growth, meaning they do not have a secondary thickening (no year rings that relate to their age). Palms have a herbaceous root system, where the single root does not get thicker than 3 inches in diameter (Chan and Elevitch 2006). Their ability to generate new roots, near by the stem, allows easy transplantation (Palm Jacking) a behavior common even to more mature trees. Even though they do not have a secondary thickening, palms grow to extreme heights, and adapt to many environmental conditions, explaining their often-skewed growth patterns (Tomlinson 2006). Palms have the largest seed in the world, wrapped in a thick husk layer, allowing them to float in water for over 3 months, which further confirms their natural dispersion by sea travel (2006). There are many more reasons why palm trees are considered one of the world’s most amazing species.

Deering’s passion for palm trees was reflected

in his real estate developments, including the construction of board walks and planted coconut trees at Lummus Park. The Ocean Realty Company’s investment injected 40’000 USD to the project, which was eventually gifted to the Municipality of Miami Beach (Carson 1955). This was one of the pivotal moments in the cultural history of the coconut palm, a traceable time when their symbolic and atmospheric appearance was prioritized over their economic value. This new perception of the pam tree as a symbol of a tropical lifestyle was glamorized in the chapter of the professional hoteliers and the arrival of Colonel R. Montgomery.

The professional hoteliers The initial work of the private promoters created an imagination of a new holiday destination. This was underpinned by a steady growth and implementation such as the Collins dredge, a shift of the hotel industry due to the Great Freeze and most importantly the 1913 erected Toll Bridge (Carson 1955), which was in many ways a turning point, connecting Miami Beach with the City of Miami. The opening of the bridge is celebrated as the day that gave birth to the City of Miami Beach and started to attract professionals (1955). As a result, the passion and promotion of palms grew horizontally, covering and growing in space through each individual architectural period. Their appearance reflected the exotic imagination of Miami Beach residents: hotels, condominiums, private properties, streetscapes, beaches and parks that were embellished with a variety of palm trees.

This obsession and fascination for palm trees and their immense variety was further promoted by Colonel Robert Montgomery. Montgomery moved southwards due to Miami’s favorable and tropic temperatures, as he was invited to participate in a palm tree collection competitions against his friend George Brett, the owner of MacMillan Press (Montgomerybotanical 2005). Montgomery, devoted to summon the largest palm and cycad

collection in South Florida, starts construction in 1932 to develop a coconut grove, which he named Coconut Grove Palmetum (Carson 1955). With the help of his friend David Fairchild, they soon established a collection of 237 species and varieties on 10 acres (Montgomerybotanical 2005).

A further important character to introduce is the Harvard trained Landscape Architect William L. Phillips. Phillips was a member of the Frederick Law Olmstead Partnership before moving to Miami (F. Jackson 1997). He got commissioned to work on the first State Park, in the Everglades.

The Royal Palm Park was chosen by the National Park Service and ECW and commissioned by May Mann Jennings, wife of the former Florida governor (1997). On an account to Olmstead Jr. Phillips mentions: “Coconut palms please me the most in groves or in lines along the seafront, for the natural curve of their trunks and for fronds that caught the breeze in constant movement. These, rather than the royal palms, were the very symbol and mark of the land…” (1997). Starting in 1938, Phillips teamed up with Montgomery to design the Fairchild Tropical Garden. After Montgomery’s dead in 1953, his wife Nell Montgomery created the Montgomery Foundation to support and promote the research (Montgomerybotanical 2005). Today, the Foundation holds and estimated collection of 5’000 specimen from all around the world (collected in over 41 expeditions and numerous donations).

The progress into the modern City of Miami Beach of today was interfused with several draw backs and critical moments. Moments of prosperity were followed by extreme events such as the several hurricanes, big fire across the everglades that destroyed most of the Royal Palm Park as well as reoccurring frost events, pushing the tourism industry further down south to Miami Beach and the Keys. In 1969, the lethal yellowing disease was first discovered in Miami, Key Largo (Carson 1955). The disease moved northwards and by 1969 became epidemic, which resulted in the destruction of over 100’000 original coconuts.

The Jamaica Tall which has become so incredible symbolic compared to other species was affected the most. As a result, the multi-million marketing symbol was replaced with a disease resistant palm tree. The Fiji dwarf, which is significantly smaller than their tall brothers from Jamaica or the often planted native Royal Palm tree, were more similar in shape and adopted to the viral challenges (Husby November 17, 2015). With that, the Fiji dwarf despite its shorter height, kept the symbol and imagination of the tropic winter resort alive.

ern movement in the 1950’s to the international post-modern style of today. Change also came in form of major environmental drawbacks such as the great frost, the big fires of the Everglades, the Lethal Yellowing Disease and reoccurring hurricanes. Whatever the changes were, Miami Beach would remain persistent in these difficult circumstances, withstand and adapt. The only item that remained the same until today is the icon and promoter that once incorporated Miami Beach in 1915, the coconut (see incorporation icon p.12).

Through this reflection of Miami Beach’s history, we can start to understand how the coconut as a single species was able to create the multi-million dollar recreation destination of today. Coconuts have become the most advertised and iconic symbol of the city. Change has always been part of the young history of Miami Beach.

From the Mediterranean Revival Style, to the era of the Art Deco, over a Neo-Baroque and Mod-

The future outline of Miami Beach, very much like the past, continues to be described through the notion of change. Change, as indicated in this reflection, was always followed by the notion of transformation and progress. In this regard, the trajectory of the coconut palm as an early initiator for development, has the potential to unravel future imaginations. The endorsement of plants as natural defense strategies and promoters of

change and adaption may lead to the reactivation and restoration of old motivations. By restoration I do not mean the nostalgic image of what Miami used to be. I introduce this term to reconnect to the old values, tying back to the kind of imagination Collins had when first visiting Miami Beach 125 years ago. Furthermore, the reintroduction of early agents, such as the Australian pine tree (Causarina) with its productive and highly resilient root system, holds potential for improvement and change. Causarina had been demonized, but was initially used by Collins to protect his avocados. In postcards of Miami City (or even cities such as Sydney, where Causarina is native), Causarina seam ocean fronts and provide shade.

This species had been part of the tropics as much as the coconut. As part of the activation process and paradigm change, I would like to bring up the notion of urban soils (Craul 1985). Urban soils have been completely neglected as most surfaces in Miami Beach are impermeable or soil depth

is minimal. This can partially be tied back to the coconut, as they only require a minimum amount of soil in depth and width. Urban soils however, have a great water holding capacity and permeability that can react to storm water surges. As salinity in the ground constantly increases, the planted vegetation needs to adapt to this new environment (Fiji dwarfs’ are not as tolerant as the Jamaican Tall). The application and introduction of design in a densely populated urban fabric (public spaces) may find agency in the design of the streetscape. The streetscape not only has the ability to replace fill material with performative soils, but also has the agency of changing the visual and esthetic paradigm paired with Miami’s playfulness (inserting new design elements to the touristic streets), preparing Miami Beach for a slow transition. In that regard, the trajectory the coconut palm as initiator for development and symbol for the tropics may be repeated in regard to what Miami Beach is going to look like by 2050.

Lummus Park, December 2014

Pine Tree Drive, Spring 2015

Mikela de Tchaves

CAUSEWAY THE DEVELOPEMENT OF MIAMI BEACH HAS GENERATED A SUITE OF CONNECTIONS THAT HAVE PLAYED A PIVOTAL ROLE IN THE SHAPING OF THE CITY. THE CAUSEWAYS WERE THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF THE PRIVATE INVESTMENTS THAT WOULD SHAPE THE FUTURE OF MIAMI BEACH WHILE BEARING THE COST OF BUILDING CITY’S INFRASTRUCTURE. EACH CONNECTION SERVED AS A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT, INCREASING ACCESS AND FOSTER A CENTURY OF CONNECTION AND DEPENDENCY.

Miami Beach is the land of the most extraordinary constructed authenticity or even authentic artificiality. Since its conception this strip of land on the fringe between the bay and the ocean has undergone a massive transformation that turned a mangrove swampland into one of the world’s most known beach resorts.

In this incredible effort to realize the dreams of a new tropical waterfront destination, a set of infrastructural maneuvers had to take place in order to support the realization of this new constructed landscape. Here we look at the catalyzing moments of a bridge and a pier as the vectors of development that bridge the island to the past, the mainland and project its existence to the future, the water.

The current research intends to explore the extents of the physical influence of these vectors through time. Its goals are twofold: on the one hand, to bridge and resonate the present condition of Miami Beach through its past and on the other, to project the future spatial and time scale of its strategies in the future.

The catalyzing moment of connecting Miami with the barrier islands of Miami Beach was in 1913 when the first bridge was opened, providing a critical link to the, formerly accessible only by ferry service, Miami beach. The Collins Bridge (now Venetian Causeway) was conceived and realized by John S. Collins who was farmer and later developer determined to turn the tropical island into a classy winter resort by selling waterfront lots for homes. At the time it was completed, Collins Bridge was the longest wooden bridge in the world, showcasing the conquest of this undeveloped land and opening it up for unprecedented growth and development, thus marking the beginning of a new era for Miami Beach. An interesting detail that sets this moment into perspective is the loan of $50,000 that Carl G. Fisher, an Indianapolis automotive parts magnate, offered Collins for the completion of the bridge when his money ran

out, in exchange for a big strip of land on the island. The year that followed the completion of the bridge $66,000 worth of lots were bought in three days. Fisher came to become the main promoter and advertiser of Miami Beach’s development in the 1920’s. His interests can be traced in his 1928 connecter venture to the North with his unprecedented project of Dixie Highway, an assemblage of existing road networks that connected Chicago to Miami. Besides, at the time Miami was at the forefront of highway planning as it reworked pathways of the city to short distances, accommodate infrastructure and open new land for development while encouraging year-round tourism and luring travelers to Florida’s southern tip.

Following the deterioration of the Collins Bridge in the late 1910’s, the next “arm” of Miami Beach was constructed in 1920, providing the second direct land route between the barrier islands and Miami over the Biscayne Bay. The County Causeway (now MacArthur Causeway) connected downtown Miami to the upcoming neighborhood of South Beach. The Collins Bridge and the County Causeway channeled the first wave of development along the east coast and the beach both realized by means of private investments linked to entrepreneurial efforts to take leverage from the new land. Furthermore, they provided the spines on which new land was created (Venetian, Star, Palm, Hibiscus, and Belle Islands).

The resulting man-made islands allowed for the development of exclusive neighborhoods with strong yet private interests and demands exacerbating the phenomenon of privileged and vulnerable grounds.

Another critical point in Miami Beach’s early history is the construction of the so-called “Carter’s Million Dollar Pier.” Following the ground work already laid by others -clearing of the dense jungle of mangroves, the surveying of streets and lots, bringing thousands of coconut palms and beginning the construction of homes and tourist hotels- George Carter conceived the idea of

developing the amusement side of the city. Believing that Miami Beach is destined to become one of the greatest recreational and convention cities in the world, the Atlantic City of the south, he erected a pier with a concrete walkway and entertainment venues, in 1926. Although the pier was damaged during its construction in both the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes, Carter subsequently repaired and reinforced the structure, spending so much money into the project that it became known as the “Million-Dollar Pier.” The pier hosted a restaurant, a gambling casino and a strip joint, which later became a dance pavilion. For several decades the pier flourished as a gathering spot for visitors and locals “demonstrating the city’s eternal pledge to give tourists of all ages and inclinations a happy holiday on Miami Beach.” It became a landmark jutting across the man-made beach, stretching into the ocean with pride, reminding of a man’s persisting vision to achieve the “impossible.” And indeed, the apparently impossible was achieved: the pier instrumented Miami’s pop culture by providing a recreational and provisional public space to the community that spurred and gravitated the development of hotels and summerhouses.

Although the devastating hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 followed by the Great Depression slowed down Miami Beach’s growth, the pace was picked up in the mid 30’s with hundreds of new buildings filling up the empty lots with the new Art Deco architecture. That was the time when the four main transportation corridors of Miami Beach, two horizontal dictated by the main access vectors of County Causeway and Venetian Causeway (the third one was way up to the north) and the two vertical ones of Collins Avenue and Alton Road, framed the division between the high-rise edge wrapping around the island’s tip and the mid-lowrise mainly Art Deco interior. Another pivotal moment in the succession of infrastructural vectors is the completion of the Julia Tuttle Causeway in 1959. At the time, Florida’s vehicle registrations and fuel sales were the highest per capita in the

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nation with Miami Dade County leading the state.

The strength of the automotive sector was ample justification for the 250 million dollar expressway system that would soon reconfigure the topography of Miami. The new over-water highway crossing the middle of the bay was synchronized with the opening of the new Miami International Airport terminal building, extending later through the Interstate 195 (1961) and the Airport Expressway (1961). Having no drawbridges, this landfilled parkway was Miami’s first speed connection to Miami Beach radically shortening tourists’ commutes to the swanky resorts along upper Collins Avenue, which had already been shortened by faster airplanes.

The “arms” of Miami Beach created a suite of connections and dependencies that have played a significant role in the shaping of the city. Serving as catalysts for creating development, they were the physical manifestation of the visions of symbolic individuals representing the private sector and stepping forward in an attempt to change the future of Miami Beach while bearing the cost of building city’s infrastructure. Created to increase access and foster interconnectedness, they simultaneously laid the ground for a series of dependencies, which allowed Miami Beach to thrive and stay alive, but may put at risk its ability to respond to the future challenges.

A closer look at the physical profile of the three main causeways reveals a set of issues that can render these connections obsolete, should an extreme storm event occurs, but also in the case of the long term sea level rise. Sitting on land filled soil for most of their parts, the causeways are

likely to be submerged in parts in a post-storm surge condition. Although their connection to the island of Miami Beach is established through bridges of higher elevation, their points of connection to the ground are found in the west coast of Miami Beach that also constitutes the most flood prone area due to both its lower elevation, but also its dredged nature. These connections have always been the life-lines of Miami Beach, now appear more vulnerable than ever. Furthermore, the most recent evacuation plan of Miami Beach consists of emergency evacuation buslines that can transfer people to the several Hurricane evacuation centers, only one of which is located on Miami Beach and specifically on North beach. Given the fact that the causeways are exclusively dedicated to vehicular transportation and that Miami Beach lacks any alternative water or rail connection their role as the only evacuation and emergency access routes for private cars and buses is highly challenged.

How can these aging infrastructures be transformed and re-imagined in a way that can accommodate the future challenges of coping in such a precarious environment? Instead of bearing the extremely high cost of merely elevating them – an action that can cause a series of repercussions in terms of connecting to the various islands of the Bay – adapting, reconstructing or constructing from scratch for the sake of evacuation appears the more efficient solution. While adapted at a higher elevation, a new bridge or one that takes advantage of the existing structures can offer alternative connections to the drier side of Miami.

a. McArthur || 6 lanes, no sidewalk, painted bike paths, 2 landfilled islands, 2 bridges b. Venetian || 2 lanes, sidewalks, security gates on enterances, 6 landfilled islands, 7 bridges c. Julia Tuttle || 6 lanes, no sidewalk, painted bike paths, 1 landfilled island, 2 bridges Proposed Sections based on McArthur Causeway Profile a. Widening median for light rail, side extension with walkway, bike path and emergency bus lane. b. Elevated bridge on top of causeway with walkway, bike path, bus lanes, light rail. c. Elevated bridge with pedestrian, bike, light rail, and spaces for temporary activities.

Althea Northcross

SEWER SOUTHEAST FLORIDA IS MAKING UNPRECEDENTED DECISIONS ABOUT HOW TO DEAL WITH SEWAGE IN COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS. THE CONFLUENCE OF POWER, INFLUENCE, AND SOCIAL PRESSURE HAS FORCED THE LOCAL, AND NOW FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS HAND IN RE-ASSESSING THESE INVISIBLE, NOTORIOUSLY COMPLEX, AND EVER MORE FRAGILE MUNICIPAL SYSTEMS.

“Nondescript as it is, the [outfall] pipe is at the center of one of the biggest fights over climate change in the country. It carries millions of tons of partially treated sewage daily — after it is piped underwater from Miami Beach — miles out to the ocean [...] It could be much worse than Hurricane Sandy. If you had billions of gallons pouring into the waters, it would be a catastrophe, a calamity.” 1 Like most cities across the United States, the stories of dealing with sewage are often unknown or misrepresented for two main reasons: sewage is invisible infrastructure, and it remains ill-mannered to talk about human waste. After graduating from the rural settlement strategy of septic systems, Miami-Dade county started dumping untreated sewage offshore in the thirties, installed a wastewater treatment facility and pushed the outfall further offshore in the fifties, and now due to federal environmental regulations, Southeastern Florida is projecting a future wherein the vast majority ofsewage is pumped inland and gets injected below the groundwater aquifer by 2030. Miami Beach and the sewage management planners at the county level are not making history in the way they have adapted their infrastructure over the course of the twentieth century, but they have recently moved to the forefront of a national debate on sewage treatment legislation as it will arguably affected by the threats of climate change.

The map to the left is a visualization of the current situation and the projections report published by the regional government agency, South Florida Water Management District (1949) the entity charged with managing and protecting water resources for all of South Florida. Published in 2012, the Lower East Coast Water Supply Plan Update was put together because of growth pressures, and also pressures by the federal government to keep unpurified water from reaching the ocean. Though some cities purify their water to a

high enough standard to continue the use of outfalls, not all cities have the same pressures, or resources to purify the water to the standard of drinking water before releasing it back into the ocean. For this reason, the deep-well injection system is a more economical choice for most small to mid-sized coastal cities. Since sewage is both socially and infrastructurally hidden, it is useful to use the prominent examples to help understand and explain the dynamics of these systems. The Boston Harbor story offers an excellent example of a system fully transformed through social pressures. Up until the 1980s, the Boston Municipal sewage outfall was located directly in the middle of the Harbor and the water quality issues were becoming too shockingly apparent to be ignored by the public. When the international press deemed Boston the “filthiest harbor in America”, the public shame effectively wrought a dramatic and effective transformation “...now [Miami Beach is] part of the county’s system. Their sewage “system” [used to be] an outfall dumping untreated waste as far off the beach as they thought necessary, though that did not work very well when the wind and tide shifted.

[Coastal Communities] all have to contend with the same problem but they are not all prominent enough to have caught the attention of scholars.”

In his piece on Miami-Dade’s sewage infrastructure, Revell explains the process that started in 1892 with public officials of the Village of Miami began building outfalls for raw sewage outfalls into Miami river and the bay. He outlines the difficulties of the county in addressing these issues, stating that “Between 1926 and 1949, plans to address Bay pollution were destroyed by hurricanes, postponed by the depression, and set aside because of rising construction costs. The decisive first step toward addressing both the local and regional problem--the opening of the Virginia Key treatment plant in 1956 -- was thus 60 years in the making, culminating in what reporter Verne Williams called “a curious history

of civic procrastination, blunders, and misfortunes.” This is hardly surprising considering the lack of successful coastal precedents to turn to for exemplars.The EPA’s website explains that Florida is the only state in the Union to use deep injection wells to deal with municipal wastewater.

The vast majoriy of other cases for the use of these wells is for the safe disposal of toxic materials or other hazardous waste materials. As a result, Florida is leading the national charge on this mode of wastewater treatment.

shame + legislation Class 1 wells are considered a method of treatment for toxic materials, considering the geologic scale of time they will remain below the surface of the earth. The EPA only accepts this option if it can be proven that there is no other possible mitigation strategy for the waste. The wells are designed so that if they happen to fail, the waste would be confined inside the controlled injection zone. The depth of these wells is meant to assure that the waste will not affect an underground water supply for 10,000 years or until the waste is not harmful. To ensure this, the EPA mandates there are no faults or other adverse geological fetures present in the area. They also work to ensure that the well traverses layers that do not currently hold water but have the requisite features (porosity and permeabilty) for holding leaks. Class one wells can be extremely deep.

In the Great Lakes region, they are 1,700 - 6,000 ft deep while on the Gulf coast they are typically 2,200 - 12,000 ft deep inflection points for change.

The tipping point for Miami-Dade came in 1967 when legendary popular science fiction writer Philip Wylie wrote a scathing article on the problem of pollution in the bay. He single handedly landed the nation in the reality of the sewage-filled bay and as a result threatened the mystique of Miami Beach. With the resort destination in jeopardy, the county had no choice but to act, resulting in the construction of the Virginia Key Wastewater Facility, which started to treat a

portion of the sewage, pushing the outfall further out to sea. Wylie was vocal, popular with the National Press and his message was clear: “I was not a popular person when I kept writing the appalling facts about our polluted paradise. But I used that grim information only in the gutsy local press, save for one occasion when I wrote about part of our mess for a national weekly – to prove that sickly cities, however sunny, would not attract tourists. The national reaction was violent and my point was made.”

Though the bay is now “clean”, the city still suffers from sewage overflows, the locations of which are sensitive data points. Though the most obvious overflows are due to flooding, the focus of the County’s unique consent decree, drafted in 2013, is not just about addressing overflows, but serves an imperative for change handed down from the Federal government.

The objective is preparing the Virginia Key plant for the inevitable tropical storm that will likely break the outflow pipe and damage the facility, releasing liquid chlorine and partially treated sewage into the bay with assurance of irrevocable damage. As Marshall states, this particular consent decree could have wide-ranging implications for the way that wastewater is dealt with simply because it clearly addresses the threats of climate change. This time, the socially and scientifically informed watchdogs Waterkeeper, led by Marine Biologist Rachel Silverstein. Though the conversation has begun, the process of preparing is lurching forward in fits and starts, slowed by the weight of the responsibility of addressing threats to the entire county.

1 Quote: Albert Slap, Attorney & Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper

Sewage Pumps, Force Mains The relationship between the 4 waste water treatment plants in Miami-Dade is a direct result of the legislation that linked them post-bay clean up, rather than a result of structural feasibility or economic assesment.

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Tyler Mohr

DREDGE THE PAST AND FUTURE OF MIAMI BEACH MAY BE REDUCED TO SEDIMENT. DREDGING IS THE PROCESS OF UNDERWATER EXCAVATION, A PROCESS THAT ENABLED THE TRANSFORMATION OF A FOLIATED BARRIER ISLAND INTO A GLIMMERING TOURIST DESTINATION. IT MAY ALSO PROVE TO PLAY A KEY ROLE IN ITS UNCERTAIN FUTURE.

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COLLINS FARM 1909 1976-1987 BEACH RENOURISHMENT

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Miami Beach is on the “hot seat” to establish a means of coping with sea level rise. The artificially developed barrier island experiences regular flooding that is mitigated by highly engineered solutions ranging from raised road infrastructure to water pumps. These engineered solutions seem to be fitting in a city in which the land it was built upon was almost entirely engineered in itself. Extensive dredging, and fill operations transformed the land from an uninhabitable mangrove swamp to a vibrant tourism destination. Some even go as far as to say that the dredge is the “emblem” of the construction Miami Beach.

The Norman H. Davis Dredge is commonly seen in the historic settings and postcards that are emblematic of early construction, the dredge hard at work in the background. However, despite the city’s highly engineered history, the issue of climate change and sea level rise is looking to be one that Miami Beach cannot engineer its way around. While the days of dredging as we know it in Miami Beach are over, the possibility for dredge to play a new and vital role in the future of Miami Beach is not too crazy to fathom.

This future of dredge could potentially take the form of a strategic cut and fill operations in key locations within the city.

The Indigenous Sandbar At the same time that the great everglades marshes were being drained, a parallel story of land transformation was taking place in Eastern Florida, off the shoreline of Miami. Before Miami beach as we knew it existed, it’s appearance was dramatically different than that of today.

The barrier island existed as a strip of sand, approximately 200 feet in width with a gentle slope from the ridge to the lower dunes on the bay side. The dunes had vegetation ranging from weeds and Spanish bayonet that transitioned to the salt mud of the tidal flats where a dense mangrove forest stood. However, the turn

of the century posed a new and completely unrecognizable future for the barrier island we now know as Miami Beach.

A Vision for Miami Beach In 1913 Carl G. Fisher, an Indiana promoter, who made fortune by selling bicycles and automobiles, then by manufacturing a gas for automobile headlights saw Collins’ ambitious projects and agreed to pay for finishing of bridge in return for 200 acres of land near the south end of what is now Miami beach. Fisher was able to use the policies of Florida that promoted development such as the Riparian Act of 1855 and later, that of 1921. The legislature, The Riparian Act of 1855, allowed owners of riparian property to fill adjacent tidal land for the construction of wharfs, warehouses and dwellings to encourage navigation. The later Riparian Act of 1921 required that the state benefits from the development of the filled riparian property on which “warehouses, dwellings, and other buildings” were built. Prior to his ambitions of developing Miami Beach, Fisher had discovered how cheaply a piece of land around his winter home in Miami had been dredged. This influenced his eventual dredging plan for the larger portion of Miami Beach.

Over the course of the next 15 years and by the means of business arrangements with the Collins family, Carl fisher was able to fill in the Mangroves swamps of the area. The process of clearing and filling the thousands of acres of mangrove swamps required large sums of laborers with saws and axes. Fisher and his business associates spent $600,000 on six million cubic yards of fill that covered the swamps and remaining mangrove stumps. At the linear cost of $10 per running foot, the shoreline began to develop and leading the charge was the iconic Norman H. Davis Dredge which could pump sand up to a mile away. The Davis Dredge worked in tandem with the Florida and Biscayne to develop a uniform, five-foot high plateau that deepened

Dredge Cycle Diagram // Dredge Research Collaborative

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Norman H. Davis Dredge 1923 // State Archives of Florida - Florida Memory

the bay as it built land. By the Florida land boom in the 1920’s, the manufactured land was earning Fisher and his associates close to $24 million per year in land sales, making Florida’s first large scale dredge-and-fill operation an enormous economic success. Later, from 1917 to 1918, Carl Fisher constructed another smaller island using remaining fill material from Miami Beach.

Star Island, a half mile long and a quarter mile wide, was the first of several smaller constructed islands in Biscayne Bay.

Dredge Today From 1976 to 1987 the coast of Miami Beach went through a beach re-nourishment, bringing 14 million cubic meters of sand that spanned 10 miles up the shoreline. The sand was dredged pumped in from off of the coast and cost the

city a total of approximately $64 million dollars.

In terms of successful beach nourishments, the late 70’s re-nourishment of Miami Beach is considered to be one of the most greatest of it’s type. However, despite its success 40 years ago, dredging in present day Miami Beach has all but ceased. In Florida’s state Lands Authorizations, dredging is outlined in the following way: 1. Dredging is generally discouraged and approved only when shown to be: The minimum amount necessary to accomplish a stated purpose or Designed to minimize the need for maintenance dredging.

2. Dredging to provide upland fill is prohibited unless: No other reasonable source of materials is available, or the activity is shown to be in the public interest.

Star Island after construction // Images of America - Miami Beach

A recent dredge project by the Army Corps of Engineers aimed to deepen the channel to the port of Miami by the use of dredge with the intent to facilitate larger ships passage through the canal This increase in depth intends to increase the bottom of the canal from 44ft deep to 52ft deep. Despite the Corps claim of having little environmental impact, divers discovered that the dredging was harming aquatic life and significantly altering marine ecosystems. The coral reefs of South Florida run along the coast from key West to Palm Beach to just outside of Biscayne Bay. The dredge operation to deepen the canal cuts through a native staghorn coral reef. Prior to dredging, the corps relocated more than 1000 colonies of coral to other reefs and a nursery at the University of Miami. The permit that the Corps obtained to execute the dredge operation allowed for “light” sediment to fall

within a 150m distance of the shipping channel.

Despite their attempt to cause no harm to the reef by sucking up sediment and loading it onto a boat that ships it away, the Corps was issued a warning as their operation had been found to be dispersing heavy silt beyond the permit’s agreed area. The canal dredging is set to be finished in 2016 however many fear that the endangered staghorn coral have already experienced severe damage.

Dredge Tomorrow With both the limitations and environmental implications of dredging, it is apparent that dredging, at least as we know it now, isn’t the answer to sea level rise and climate change in Miami Beach. Projects like the Deep Dredge are implemented as economic production rather

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than a form of coastal resilience. This being said, large scale projects like the deep dredge provide a base framework to operate within moving forward. The basic idea behind the Deep Dredge was to deepen the channel by a process of “cut” and dispose of the “fill” material. This raises the question - in a city where a substantial amount of land and building floor elevations are less than three feet above sea level, how can we use a similar process of cut and fill to strategically carve into and build up land in Miami Beach.

The city of Miami Beach currently uses areas and lots of new development to implement their water pumps. These sites, often located along canals or on the bayfront, are prime locations to explore opportunities of more intense intervention, such as cut and fill operations. Assuming that many houses in the city are aging and construction is ongoing, there is potential for the city to acquire

these lots that are under development, similar to the way they currently are acquiring land for large scale water pumps, and pro-actively retrofit them to help manage sea level rise and water inundation. By removing land, more area for water capacity is afforded while acquiring fill that can be used to build up land in adjacent or other locations of Miami Beach.

The target areas for intervention: 1. Land adjacent existing waterways - such as the Collins Canal 2. Existing low points within the city - Flamingo Park and its immediate context 3. Bayside land - undeveloped or under-utilized 4. Golf Courses - redevelopment to establish new local high points

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The catalog of dredge diagrams can be used as a means of exploration for what the future Miami Beach might look like. This exploration can be viewed as a series individual and independent interventions in Miami Beach or as an agglomeration of strategies. While the interventions are relatively site-specific,

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a larger system of adaptations can be imagined that use similar strategies of dredge as a means of sea level rise management. These specific strategies operate with the intention of facilitated water allowance in specified areas and the use of dredge material to build new local high points in the city.

Foad Vahidi

SAND SAND HAS A STORY TO TELL; A STORY THAT IS NOT ONLY IMPLICIT TO A GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALES, BUT ALSO TO THE LOCAL AND GLOBAL ECONOMICS. IRONICALLY, NEITHER SCALE– FROM THE GRAIN THO THE QUARRY –ARE IMMEDIATELY EVIDENT WITHIN THE FABRIC OF MUNICIPAL PLANNING IN MIAMI BEACH.

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Sand is composed of many different materials; Organic, geologic and of course synthetic materials are all major constituents of sand

The lack of prominent seasonal changes in the tropics diminishes in some respect the notion of time within the cultural and economic landscapes. This is in part due to the fact that cycles of consumption and production have historically been tied to diurnal and seasonal changes in the land. Southern Florida situated just two degrees north of the tropic of Cancer, has arguably more to share with the “tropical” than the subtropics of Southern United States, both from a vegetal range as well as the cultural pressures that have been instrumental in the formation of Miami Beach.

The city of Miami Beach – among others – has been building on sand for more than a century as a static substance. As a material that does not move and does not register time; Sand is mainly understood as a bulk natural resource. The advent of climate change and sea level rise bring the first temporally tangible “economies” of change that the city of Miami Beach has encoun-

tered since its inception and sand for the first time is “noticeably” shifting.

The ensuing research project will recognize sand not only as a global resource of major economic importance, but more explicitly as a collection of single autonomous grains with different shapes and sizes. The project will classify the ranges of substances that one could call sand. Strictly speaking, sand is not a material; it is a classification of granular size spectrum.

What are other materials – natural or constructed – that we can classify as sand? What are the physical, biotic, vegetal and hydrologic potentials associated with these materials? The project will aim to recognize a single grain of “sand” as an agent that imposes spatial consequences through its specific material qualities. In this regard, sand will implicate a projective change as oppose to nostalgic history that romanticizes a grain of sand as a constituent of geologic time.

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A subtle change in color due to the new mixture will create a new aesthetic in portions of the beach.

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Range of different colors commonly found in American glass recycling facilities Almost 70 percent of all sand grains on our planet are composed of silica, or quartz.

Silica is made from silicon – the second most commonly found element on earth - and oxygen – the most commonly found element on earth forming silicon dioxide. Quartz is the chief component of all rock formation within earth’s crust; hence 70 percent of all battered and weathered grains of sand are quartz. The next 30 percent of sand grains however, are composed of a wide array of materials with rock origins that are predominantly volcanic and igneous, with basalt as one of the primary components. A grain of sand that is found along active continental shelves, or subduction zones is predominantly igneous in origin. Tectonic hotspots such as oceanic islands are also a source of basalt rich sand. Sand that is formed along passive continental margins however, is predominantly quartz and white in appearance. Sand also appears in combination with other minerals or at times made entire-

ly of non-rock source grains. In Lake Assal, the lowest point in Africa, the water is so saline that the beach sand is made of salt crystals. In glass beach northern California – near Eureka – an entire beach is made of glass, broken, battered and rounded by wave action after it was dumped offshore by county officials. Economically speaking however, silica rich sand is the only type of sand that has value. Quartz based sand is the primary component of nearly all beach tourism. Sand, along with cement is the chief ingredient of concrete. Silica extracted from sand is the primary raw material for all global glass production.

The entire microchip industry depends on silica that is extracted from sand and finally there are numerous consumer products from cosmetics to cleaning products that are all by-products of sand. It should be noted however, in the small city of Fort Bragg, glass beach tourism is a major source of income for local businesses and residents.

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LITTORAL CELL is a reach of the coast that is isolated sedimentologically from adjacent coastal reaches and that features its own sources and sinks.

SUBMARINE CANYON is an underwater depression that regulates the outward movement of sediments to the open water.

LONGSHORE CURRENT is an ocean current that moves parallel to shore. It is caused by large swells sweeping into the shoreline at an angle and pushing water down the length of the beach in one direction.

THE CONTINENTAL SHELF is an underwater landmass which extends from a continent, resulting in an area of relatively shallow water known as a shelf sea. The shelf is part of the continental tectonic plate.

100km south florida | proposed glass cullet flow

Florida Atlantic University Experiment with Cullet and Oat Grass Sand is a granular size classification, typically ranging from 2mm sieve size to 1/16th of a millimeter sieve size for extremely fine sand that is approaching silt. In other words, salt marine shells that are pulverized within this size spectrum are technically sand. In fact there are beaches around the globe that are formed of predominantly marine shell deposits. For the construction industry however, the only type of sand that is of any value is silica rich sand dredged from river or ocean. This is the only kind of sand that has the physical properties suited for construction due to jagged grains of silica sticking with one another. Desert sand contains grains that are too weathered, hence they are too fluid. Miami Dade County estimates that it will need 18 million cubic yards of this specific type of sand over the next 50 years, with the City of Miami Beach as the primary destination for the acquired sand. That number does not take into account the need for increased beach nourishment projects due to increasing storm severity as a result of sea level rise. Nevertheless, even the conservative estimate equals 0.6 million tons - 1.2 billion pounds - of sand per year.

The Coastal Education and Research Foundation in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University have published preliminary results on the use of cullet as growth medium as well as nesting medium. The result for Sea Oats and Panic Grass shows that the root system was significantly more robust for the plants growing in cullet versus the control group growing in sand. They attributed the variance to the physical differences between cullet and “natural” sand in terms of water holding capacity. However, the study certainly needs more attention and testing.

The U.S market uses approximately 12 million tons of glass per year in bottle form alone, 9 million of which are not recycled. While this project does not aim to simply propose filling Miami Beach oceanfront resorts with a carpet of recycled glass cullet, given that Florida DEP has an ambitious 75% solid waste recycling goal set for 2020, the project questions whether alternative forms of “sand” can play a role in future of Miami Beach? The county of Boward recently tested a pilot project; the main issue with their approach is the use of glass cullet as “Band-Aid” to fill gaps after major storm events. No research

250km West Atlantic sedimentary flows | Appalachian to Florida Keys

Glass Beach Eureka, CA entity is systematically testing the potential for using glass cullet in different shapes and sizes, processing techniques and mixtures with or without sand vis-à-vis vegetal growth medium performance. No one is testing alternatives with regard to hydrologic performance. No one is thinking of potential aesthetics of such changes and more importantly no one is considering potential programmatic hybridizations inherent to processing centers needed for such future. The only response from the city; glass cullet is still too expensive.

and suitable domestic sand resources for Miami Beach”, the County and the city are currently in pursuit of federal authorization for sand import.

In the meantime, USACE and Miami-Dade county import sand from central Florida’s Ortona Quarry. While the city needs to rethink the logistics of transport and discarding of almost a billion pounds of sand into an already congested island during peak tourist season, this project aims to question whether the effort should be concentrated on a different type of strategic and logistic re-alignment and hybridization.

With the advent of sea level rise, and the end of off-shore dredging, the city of Miami Beach initially resorted to northern communities such as St. Lucie in order to tap into suitable off-shore resources. While communities fully realize that offshore dredging essentially puts coastline sand reserves on a conveyor belt to the bottom of the ocean, and with the USACE producing studies that can potentially lobby the lack of “available

This project recognizes the economic and ecological potential in using glass culet as a source of synthetic sand for beach nourishment by proposing a mixture of dredged sand and recycled glass for the future needs of Miami Beach. Can the grain of sand itself implicate spatial and programmatic changes?

Dave Hampton

HAMMOCK THE BISCAYNE BAY REGION HAS THE POTENTIAL TO EFFECT POSITIVE CHANGE IN ITS POTENTIAL TO TRANSFORM AQUEOUS TERRAIN INTO HIGHER, DRIER LAND. USING THE TOOLS AND LANGUAGE OF EARLY MIAMI BEACH FORMATION, FUTURE URBAN DEVELOPMENT CAN ONCE AGAIN RELY UPON BUILDING GROUND IN WATER.

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Tree island, Everglades.

Islands are constructed, whether by ‘natural’ forces, the will of a population or some combination. Hammocks (hummock, tree islands) demonstrate interlocking characteristics of island making which hold significance to Miami Beach. In this way, land building has defined Miami Beach’s relationship to water and to its coast through the dynamism of formation of sediment capture and the capacity for islands to foster increasing density and diversity through the mediation of land and water. Hammocks form a field over time, knitting together land and water forming an infrastructure for future speculation.

The propagation of hammocks – as with other robust ecosystems – depends less on the presence of individual species and more on the interplay of forces over varying scales of time. The species found on tree islands colonize where the conditions are most favorable, but, to some extent, they also create those conditions.

Tree islands change in form and number, displayed through the type of species they support (and of which they are comprised) in response to

fluctuations in nutrient levels and the flow, salinity, and quantity of water present. Being situated on Biscayne Bay, the latter becomes especially pertinent. Some high canopy species such as oak, red maple, or even high value mahogany may find fertile higher ground which once was fluid, saline or otherwise inhospitable. In cypress swamps, soil tends to be trapped and held around the “knees” over the roots, as it does among the buttressing roots of mangroves – indigenous to Biscayne Bay – where new ground was historically ‘made’.

According to botanist Peter del Tredici, “plants know what’s up” concerning how species might adapt to a future with more precipitation and greater fluctuations in temperature. Applying this process driven thinking to a changing Biscayne Bay, could yield interesting opportunities. Human history abounds with the shaping of aqueous terrain to become land in similar fashion to that of tree islands. Human intervention in the form of prehistoric trash mounds and shell spoil piles has even been thought to extend the reach of tree islands exemplified by the living patterns of

Shell spoil piles, Calusa tribe, Everglades.

indigenous peoples such as the Calusa in Southwest Florida, or the Evergaldes Tequesta, and the Seminole of South Florida.

This direct modification in the height and accumulation pattern of islands is a language which Miami Beach’s early developers and land speculators understood perfectly. Originally shaped to capitalize on the conditions of climate for agricultural production, workers were directed to hack, fill, and level the Miami Beach peninsula.

The desire to be on or near the water in an ideal climate drove further development, including cutting of channels, dredging and construction of islands in Biscayne Bay during the 1920s-30s.

Can the city reach out into the water? Or, will the water continue to claim the land?

This research describes island urbanism through increasing the concentration and diversity of life where land and water mingle, unfolding at a range of scales from the local to the terrestrial.

Using the following strategies, and considering the first three strategies as a means to develop

a likely future for Biscayne Bay in an age of seal level rise and high tide flooding, the proposal anticipates land making that mimics the hummock formation, in order to make the fourth strategy of living on the water viable again, and to avoid the need to resort to relocation or retreat.

Throughout anthropological and biological history of the Miami region, strategies for dealing with an excess of water persist: 1) Change land by going out (‘make’ land) 2) Change land by going up (raise ground) 3) Build high/tall 4) Live on the water 5) Control the water 6) Relocate or retreat Over the last century, Biscayne Bay has been transformed by changes to hydrology from a subtropical estuary to an estuarine lagoon “with salinity, circulation, and water quality that varies

Linking public spaces from Miami to Miami Beach along the Macarthur Causeway.

and is dependent on freshwater flow, wind driven circulation, and ocean exchange.” Coastal rivers and tidal creeks traversing Miami-Dade County have been eliminated, buried or channelized, changing the pattern from distributed sheet flows and gradual inputs to ‘flashier’, intense discharge point sources of freshwater, where salinity drops sharply. Marine conditions are complicated by the new connections to the Atlantic Ocean: Haulover Cut to the north and Government Cut (1920) to the south, introducing ocean mixing and inlet sedimentation.

Further, the fanciful lozenge-shaped confections of constructed land such as the Venetian Islands, Star Island, and Belle Island cluttered north Biscayne Bay in the 20th century, further altering its ability to flush and recharge as bodies of water normally do. Dodge Island, constructed in 1935 from dredge spoil, location for the Port of Miami, has clearly impacted North Biscayne Bay’s formerly more open access to the sea, further modified by dredging along Government Cut. Despite their 20th century impacts upon the Bay, this island urbanism has the potential to effect positive

change in the Biscayne Bay region.

Rather than a uniformly out-of-scale level of development, fill or an uncoordinated speculation as seen in the early 20th century which might further negatively impact the Bay, development could be targeted to a mix of greater densification and temporal uses within existing land types – both vertically and horizontally. Where low-lying land on existing islands is dominated by low-rise private development, a shift to multistory buildings could be encouraged. Where the ground floors of existing buildings will be challenged by rising waters, wet- and dry-floodproofing could explored, with vertical expansion to upper floors to compensate. Adding density to the Bay introduces further possibility for reducing vulnerability and increasing robustness. The opportunity for gradients of water to mix, from fresh, brackish, and saline across the Bay surface could address the effects of changes in salinity without relying on a regime of pumping and importing freshwater. New rainwater capture capacity could further extend water security. The impact of hurricanes, the effects of flooding from storm surges and

Light rail travels safely above, out of reach of rising waters, giving pedestrians new access to the interface of land and sea.

extreme rain events might be lessened by decentralizing urban population centers and redistributing over a more pervious area suited to periodic inundation.

Design Speculation Modifying some of the existing linkages, causeways to Miami will introduce new public space while introducing multi-modality to evacuation routes. If pedestrians and bikers were prioritized with widened paths all the way from Lummus Park to Bicentennial Park in Miami, these routes could also increase holding capacity and exchange. What if a network of floating paths at varying scales – to which anyone who sails, boats, or does most anything on the water is already accustomed – could create not only a more robust balance between traditional evacuation routes and means for sheltering-in-place, but new paths to the water?

Construction along Miami Beach’s west coast and Alton Road tends to already have a higher ground floor. If both the existing causeway and

future construction were raised and existing construction retrofitted, this route could extend southeastward to South Pointe Park.

While infiltration through karstic limestone still must be accounted for, and keeping the water out will never be fully viable, requiring pumps in the immediate future, the real objective is to draw people closer to the water – or at the very least, closer to the idea of not needing to keep it out.

Each speculation holds the potential to spur other possible uses for the Bay: short-term residential and seasonal tourist accommodation, scientific collaboration in the form of floating research stations and in-situ seabed/lagoon-bed research, and even new industries – fisheries, aquaculture, biomass energy, and algal biofuels. Thus, the proposition might be seen as the first armature along which a third lesson of tree islands might be deployed, encouraging a more nuanced interaction with the interface of land and sea, and preparing us to build upon the ground of water.

Justin Henceroth

LIMESTONE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LOCAL ROCKS SHAPE CITIES IN OBVIOUS AND SUBTLE WAYS. THE DEPOSITIONALLY POROUS OOLITIC LIMESTONE THAT UNDERLIES MIAMI FORMS THE HIGHEST ELEVATIONS IN THE REGION, CREATING A STRIP OF HABITABLE LAND FLANKED BY THE OCEAN AND THE WATERY EVERGLADES. THE POROSITY OF THE ROCK IS CRITICAL TO THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE BISCAYNE AQUIFER, THE MAIN SOURCE OF WATER FOR GREATER MIAMI .

Miami Coastal Ridge

Serial sections show the elevated Miami Coastal Ridge. As evidenced by the road network, greater Miami lies on this ridge.

The Oolitic facies of the Miami Limestone is also the foundation of Miami Beach. As waters rise quite literally through this ground, many in Miami Beach may hold an antagonistic view of the porous Miami limestone which lies under the city (Flechas and Staletovich 2015); yet, the rock may be solely responsible for the rise of Miami Beach.

Forming the bedrock under Miami and Miami Beach, the thickest part of the Oolite is 34 feet thick, and remains visible as the Miami Coastal Ridge, a line of relatively high land which runs along the Western edge of the densely developed region that separates Miami from the Everglades (Figure 1; Duncan et al. 2001; Hoffmeister, Stockman, and Multer 1967; Division 2008). Nearly all development in the greater Miami area and along the southeastern coast has taken place on the uplifted land of this ridge. Looking under the surface, the Miami Limestone is also the top layer of the Biscayne Aquifer—the body of groundwater that provides the majority of drinking water to the greater Miami Area. This porosity is critical to the productivity of the Biscayne aquifer, the main source of water for greater Miami and one of the elements supporting life on this strip of land.

Miami beach limestone produces “high yields” of water and is easily recharged by rainfall and runoff (Miller 1990).

The benefits derived from Miami Limestone can be traced back to its structure and formation. It is the primary bedrock formation found at the surface across most of Southeastern Florida, stretching from Boca Raton in the north to the Florida Keys in the South and from the barrier islands in the east through and under the Everglades to the west (Figure 3; Duncan et al.

2001). This pervasiveness has posed challenges for contractors trying to place foundations in the area (Kaderabek and Reynolds 1981), but has also led to the limestone being featured in key architectural forms that have shaped the city (2015a). Miami Limestone consists of two primary sub-groups (facies). The lower, relatively thin (no more than 10 feet thick) bryozoan facies

forms the basis of the formation and is found across almost the entire region, from Miami west through the Everglades (Hoffmeister, Stockman, and Multer 1967). The bryozoan facies is a clay limestone that is composed largely of fossilized bryozoans, a phylum within the animal kingdom consisting of microscopic aquatic invertebrates (Ryland 1970). The upper oolitic facies ranges in thickness from non-existent to 34 feet and is found closer to the southeastern coast of Florida.

The rock is formed of small ooids, oval-shaped grains typically ranging in size from 0.5mm to 1mm that are formed when calcium carbonate deposits concentrically around small particles on the sea floor such as sand, small fossils, or bits of shells (Flügel 2013).

Miami Limestone is actually quite young geologically, having formed only during the last inter-glacial period approximately 119 to 124 thousand years ago, a period characterized by sea levels that were 12 to 20 feet above current levels and temperatures that were at least 2 degrees warmer than present (Rohling et al. 2007). During this period, the area that is now greater Miami was underwater. A small ridge marking the lowtide level captured small sediments on the leeward side resulting in the low-sloping deposits that form the bryozoan facies. The ridge served as an accumulation point of larger-grained materials that ultimately become the oolitic facies (and structures such as the Miami Coastal Ridge.

Today, nearly identical conditions are found in the Bahamas and are producing the deposition of a similar rock (Hoffmeister, Stockman, and Multer 1967).

Both facies of the Miami limestone are relatively loosely compacted, resulting in rock that is on average about 40% porous (Evans and Ginsburg 1987). The rock was exposed at surface during the most recent glaciation which lowered global sea levels. Exposure to natural forces created patterns of secondary dissolution and deposition resulting in both cementation of parts of the rock

Scale: 1:60,000

Miami Limestone Key Largo Limestone Holocene Sediments Shelly Sediments Scale: 1:150,000

Bedrock in Southeast Florida. Miami Limestone is the dominant bedrock and the only rock to surface in Miami Beach.

~1 mm

1

2

3

4

~0.5 mm

High Tide Low Tide

Oolitic Facies

Bryozoan Facies

BRYOZOAN FACIES 1

Dead byrozoans (an invertebrate phylum in animal kingdom) fall to sea floor where they become fossilized and mix with clay

OOLITIC FACIES 2

Small pieces of sand, shells, and fossilized animals fall to sea floor, where they are coated with successive layers of calcium carbonate, creating sructures called ooids.

and reduction in porosity to as low as 5% and the creation of preferred flow channels with porosity as high as 60% (Evans and Ginsburg 1987).

This porosity more or less guarantees that greater Miami will face the full impacts of sea level rise. While some areas, such as the Netherlands, may be able to create dyke and flood protection systems that can mitigate rising sea levels (2012), the porous nature of Miami limestone ensures that even with sophisticated dykes and seawalls, rising waters will just come up through the ground. Recent high tide events have produced significant flooding in the streets of Miami Beach (Guirola 2015). The porosity also contributes significantly to susceptibility of the aquifer to contamination and saltwater intrusion. The separation between freshwater and saltwater is maintained when levels of relatively lighter freshwater are higher than (as a result of being at or just below ground-level and not at sea lev-

3

Ooids collect at the low tide line creating a small ridge that serves as main point of agglomerations.

4

Ooid deposits grow at the low tide line causing subsidence of rock layers below. The tidal line creates a ridge of oolitic rock.

el), and thus balance against, levels of slightly heavier saltwater. Reduction in the freshwater table from extraction and rises in sea-level alter this balance and allow saltwater to move upward and inland (Sonenshein 1997).

Many have looked at the conditions in Miami and suggest that as a result of rising sea-waters, “Miami, as we know it today, is doomed� (Harold Wanless in Goodell 2013). Given that Miami limestone is at the same elevation, relevant to current sea level, as it was when it was deposited 125,000 years ago, It is easy to envision how any return to conditions as they were during the last inter-glacial period, a scenario which is within the bounds of extreme climate projections (Rohling et al. 2007), could result in sea levels that rise back above the Miami limestone, and effectively above the cities of Miami and Miami Beach. Faced with this threat, Miami Beach has responded full-force, outlining nearly $500 mil-

125,000 Years Ago

ca. 1900

Today

2100 Minimum

2100 Average

2100 High

Section through Venetian Islands and Miami beach under different sea level conditions including when the rock was deposited, at the settling of Miami Beach, current conditions, and three estimates for sea level in the year 2100. Low estimate is for 2 feet of sea level rise. The average estimates suggest 3 feet of sea level rise. The higher estimates predict 7 feet of rise.

lion in sea level rise projects to build resilience and strengthen the city (Wheaton 2015). This plan includes projects to elevate key roadways and low-lying parts of the city, policies requiring higher seawalls, new building codes which call for false-first floors, and pilot-testing new technologies such as a resin injection system to reduce porosity of the limestone (2015b).

However, as the city develops new projects, the historic value of limestone could provide important inspiration to future urban development. The limestone provided elevated ground upon which to build, thus raising the city above the water level, while at the same time serving as the matrix to hold freshwater that would support life,

agricultural, and business. With porosity levels between 40% and 60%, this matrix holds large quantities of freshwater that everyone from early settlers to today’s inhabitants could easily access and that, at the same time, is easily recharged by rainfall infiltrating the ground. High capacity and rapid recharge has ensured that this matrix continues to sustain an aquifer that supports a large and growing population in greater Miami.

This project speculates that a renewed interest in this invisible formation is more necessary than ever in order to facilitate a future that promotes landscape character, rather than discounting or destroying it. Could the porosity of the subgrade provide clues to adaptable infrastructure?

2100 Minimum

2100 Average

2100 High

WTP

WTP WTP

Freshwater

Sea Level Rise

Freshwater

Saltwater

Rising sea levels raise the elevation of the saltwater-freshwater interface in aquifers such as those that serve Miami Beach, rendering some pumping stations and wells unusable and reducing the overall amount of available water.

Currently, efforts to raise land throughout Miami are accomplished by filling in and raising the land with soil, dredge, and other fill. Throughout the Miami-Dade area, fill material forms an 8 to 80 inch layer on top of the limestone—of which no more than 30% (and in some cases 0%) is natural soil (NRCS 2009). At the same time, as rainwaters fall on roofs and roadways, they are pumped into the storm-water and sewer systems and discharged into the bay. Future plans call for disposing of this water deep underground through high-pressure well injection (2015c). As the city looks to fill and elevate ground, could designs for these structures draw on the benefits derived from limestone, offering both elevation

and water retention? How could added space under elevated roads be utilized for water storage and retention, resulting in greater capacity for the water system and a matrix that is less reliant on mechanical systems such as pumps?

Designing elevated structures that serve multiple purposes would require both engineering and innovation; however, recent advances in material science suggest possible opportunities (Figure 6). A simple approach might be to use limestone as fill material to elevate a road, engineering the structure so that it creates space to capture storm-water. Recent dredging in the Government Cut leading to the Port of Miami has been removing a base layer of limestone which could be ap-

a. Current Plans to Elevate Roadways

Sewage

Runoff

<12”

Gravel, Loam, and Fill Natural Soil

8” to 80”

Elevated Roads

~24”

Use graval, loam, and other fill to raise roadways up to two feet.

Limestone

b. Limestone Dredge and Soil Fill

Sewage

Natural Soil Limestone

Options for using limestone and microbially generated carbonate in elevated roadway and false ground floor projects.

<12”

Gravel, Loam and Fill

8” to 80”

Elevated Roads

Runoff

~24”

Create run-off structure under elevated roadway bound by concrete. Matrix is limestone recovered from dredging and soil fill.

Gravel, Loam and Fill Natural Soil

Limestone

8” to 80”

Natural Soil

Sewage

<12”

<12”

Gravel, Loam, and Fill

8” to 80”

Runoff

Sewage

Limestone

b. Limestone Dredge and SoilDredge Fill c. Limestone and Microbial Matrix

d. Synthetic Carbonate Microbial Matrix

Create run-off structure under elevated boundwherein by concrete.

Matrixfrom dredging Under elevated roadway,roadway create matrix limestone is limestone recovered dredging and soil fill. carbonate precipating bacteria. Matrix should projectsfrom is knitted together using hold more water and be more

Future fill and elevation projects are built upon a microbial matrix that mimics Miami limestone. The matrix is solid, providing a good foundation on which to build while also retaining water. This matrix could also be used to fill in or build false ground floors of buildings, which could also link to rooftop water capture systems.

B. megaterium

Natural Soil

Limestone

Limestone

Sewage

~24”

~24” <12”

Gravel, Loam and Fill Gravel, Loam and Fill Natural Soil

Runoff

Elevated Roads Syntheic Carbonate Matrix

8” to 80”

Sewage

Elevated Roads

8” to 80”

~24”

Elevated Roads

8” to 80”

Sewage

Runoff

<12”

<12”

and Fill

Runoff

8” to 80”

Elevated Roads

~24”

B. megaterium

Limestone

d. Synthetic Carbonate Microbial Matrix Future fill and elevation projects are built upon a microbial matrix that mimics Miami limestone. The matrix is solid, providing a good foundation on which to build while also retaining water. This matrix could also be used to fill in or build false ground floors of buildings, which could also link to rooftop water capture systems.

propriated for use in fill construction projects.

More advanced designs could employ the ability of certain microbes to precipitate carbonate (the primary chemical in limestone). These bacteria are already used in construction and are the active element in ‘self-healing concrete,’ a new material which is just starting to enter use (De Muynck, De Belie, and Verstraete 2010). These bacteria could be used to knit together a matrix between limestone pieces that are mined from dredging. In natural environments, these microbes knot together matrices built on carbonate (Dupraz et al. 2009); as they become more understood, they could be directed to build a matrix with specific construction and water retention properties, perhaps building on designs of matrix materials that are already used to build land and store water (People 2007).

Sewage

~24”

Elevated Roads

Syntheic Carbonate Matrix

8” to 80”

<12”

and Fill

Runoff

8” to 80”

Elevated Roads

~24”

B. megaterium

Limestone

Advancing design that profits from local material would allow further application in the future as the issues of sea-level rise and salt-water intrusion become more acute. Initially, simpler designs would still allow for the retention of freshwater and storm water under elevated roads. As sea levels rise and inundate this interstitial space, the holding area and capacity of the ground is reduced, so that freshwater storage is also reduced. This sectional concept can advance and adapt to allow porous materials in false or sacrificial ground floors. A false ground floor that was composed of a porous matrix could support

a large building, while also holding water that could be redirected for other purposes. Water could be directed to these structures either from storm-water overflow or from rooftop collection systems. Considering the complexity of the issue, what is required now is a clear integration between water management and built form to yield a new public infrastructure.

Unlike almost any other element of life in Miami Beach, limestone has played a central role in the establishment and development of the city while also contributing to the circumstances that are threatening its future. Perhaps no other material can bridge these complexities caught between time and space. Understanding how limestone has helped create a vibrant city in a location like Miami Beach can inspire the design and planning interventions that will be required to help the city prosper and become resilient in light of an uncertain future. Ultimately, designs that contend with rising sea levels must be flexible in the face of change and adaptable to different future scenarios. Miami Beach will require both the integration of elevating the city above the tides, while managing floods and storm-waters to ensure a clean, fresh supply of water. The matrix of ground water, aquifer, and bedrock can be used to delineate an agenda of adaptation, using the embedded intelligence of local materials.

Patrick Mayfield

SALT OVER THE PAST CENTURY, WATER HAS SINGULARLY DOMINATED FLORIDA’S HISTORICAL NARRATIVE PRODUCING THE SUB-TROPICAL PARADISE OBSERVED TODAY. YET, IN THE FACE OF A RAPIDLY CHANGING CLIMATE, SALT AND THE CAPACITY FOR LIFE TO ADAPT TO SALINITY WILL DETERMINE FLORIDA’S NEXT 100 YEARS.

0.5 mi

Salt Intrusion in South Florida

As judge and jury, ultimately salt will render the form of south Florida’s future, acknowledging this inevitability presents the opportunity for positive transformation.

How can each of adaptation measure evolve to accommodate a significantly greater baseline salinity will determine both the individual’s and the community’s capacity for success.

Water in south Florida: a Paradox Compounded by the threat of coastal inundation from sea level rise, salt water intrusion into south Florida’s fresh water supplies constitutes the foremost threat against a growing coastal metropolis. Perhaps south Florida’s most critical resource, fresh water, in the form of rainfall accumulates on the order of fifty-five inches annually, sustaining one of the world’s uniquely aqueous natural environments, and an increasingly thirsty population. The Everglades, where it was once claimed a “man of ordinary height could have walked the entire length… without getting his hair wet, but his ankles might have been underwater the whole time.”, functions as the primary surficial repository for this resource in conjunction with the Biscayne aquifer underlying the region.1 Despite the extraordinary plentitude of rain south Florida receives, somewhat paradoxically, the challenge of providing an adequate supply of drinking water remains. Curiously, in contrast with national trends, total consumption as well as per capita consumption of fresh water has increased in the state of Florida over the past fifty years, concomitant with unprecedented rates of land use conversion from agricultural to housing and development purposes.

Currently in south Florida, nearly 4.166 billion gallons of fresh water are pumped from south Florida’s aquifers with an additional 2.232 billion gallons siphoned from surface water sources each day to sustain demand.

At thirty-five parts per thousand in seawater, salt surrounds and confines south Florida’s fresh water resources on nearly all sides, delimiting competing territories of fresh and saline water below grade and to an extent territories of fresh and saline life above. Presently, south Florida’s prevailing development paradigm, “paving over paradise,” in conjunction with inconsistent water withdrawal permitting and the diminished capacity of the Everglades to store fresh water has promoted an accelerating landward migration of the “salt wedge” increasing pressure on municipalities to supply fresh water seaward at increasing distance. The highly porous oolithic limestone geology underlying much of the Everglades as well as the south Florida metropolis hastens this migration, acting as a sponge, drawing up salt rich seawater from below as freshwater is siphoned from above. The mechanics of this phenomenon are driven by a single factor, the higher density of salt water to that of fresh water, giving rise to a salinity gradient that forms along the fresh-salt boundary. Along and across this “salt front line” the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) operates “one of the world’s largest public works projects”, wherein the landward advance of salt is slowed, diverted and rerouted through an incredibly complex engineered hydrology.

At thirty-five parts per thousand in seawater, salt surrounds and confines south Florida’s fresh water resources on nearly all sides, delimiting competing territories of fresh and saline water below grade and to an extent territories of fresh and saline life above. Presently, south Florida’s prevailing development paradigm, “paving over paradise,” in conjunction with inconsistent water withdrawal permitting and the diminished capacity of the Everglades to store fresh water has promoted an accelerating landward migration of the “salt wedge” increasing pressure on municipalities to supply fresh water seaward at increasing distance. The highly porous oolithic limestone geology underlying

coastal water control inland water control well field desalination facility treatment facility

0.5 mi

Salt Infrastructure in South Florida

much of the Everglades as well as the south Florida metropolis hastens this migration, acting as a sponge, drawing up salt rich seawater from below as freshwater is siphoned from above. The mechanics of this phenomenon are driven by a single factor, the higher density of salt water to that of fresh water, giving rise to a salinity gradient that forms along the fresh-salt boundary. Along and across this “salt front line” the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) operates “one of the world’s largest public works projects”, wherein the landward advance of salt is slowed, diverted and rerouted through an incredibly complex engineered hydrology.

Salt Defenses With 2,600 miles of canals and levees, 532 water control structures, and 63 pump stations pipes constitute the complexity of the artificial infrastructure built to manage the region’s massive hydrology, sustaining 52% of statewide withdrawals to 41% of the statewide population, in a territory that covers 31% of the state’s land area, an infrastructure increasingly mobilized to defend against salt.3 With much of this infrastructure having been erected to facilitate the production and protection or arable and developable land from flood events, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now adapting or entirely removing these structures to allow for the delivery of freshwater to coastal wetlands under threat of collapse due to increased salinity.

Additionally, the proliferation of desalination facilities within the district represents the increasing severity of the fresh water crisis, as well as a primary symptom of the inevitable salinization of the south Florida territory.

Currently, SFWMD operates 38 desalination facilities to augment potable water supply to areas where saltwater intrusion has compromised localized ground water or surface water sources but also in a larger capacity to facilitate increased fresh water recharge of areas of the Biscayne

aquifer under threat of salt intrusion from over consumption by pumping fresh water directly into the ground.

Within the dialogue on south Florida’s saline future, it is important to recognize the potential folly of sustaining a century long campaign against salt through an increasingly engineered solution that prioritizes freshwater conservation in areas that will inevitably lie at the sea floor. For this reason the “restoration” of the Everglades in areas of highest risk may yet prove another boondoggle for south Florida, in communities where nature is actively adapting to a salt dominated future.

Learning from Nature While freshwater will remain absolutely necessary to accommodate life, key Florida species have already evolved a number of biological devices designed to live with salt at the cellular and specimen level. With increasing salinity, these communities are well prepared to accommodate a changing environment and have already begun adaptive restructuring at scales spanning the south Florida peninsula.

The mangrove forests which previously dominated the extent of the southern and south eastern Florida coastal fringe present the best example of a salt adapted community of species which until recently, thrived in the saline territories that have been overrun by the south Florida metropolis. Not unlike most salt tolerant species who manage their water intake via osmotic adjustment or osmo-regulation, in an environment where any salt intolerant species would essentially wilt or dehydrate from the presence of salt externally, halophytes maintain a high internal salinity so as to induce water intake from a salt water source. The product of this ingenious adaptation however leads to the accumulation of salt in the plant which must be routinely exported. To manage their salt,

URBAN ZONATION TYPE A

TYPE B

TYPE C

SALT TOLERANT LOW ADAPTIVE CAPACITY

12th street transect

lincoln road transect

29th street transect

45th street transect

56th street transect

Zoning for salt intrusion

TYPE E

SALT INTOLERANT HIGH ADAPTIVE CAPACITY

4th street transect

7th street transect

TYPE D

halophytes have evolved an array of techniques including exclusion, secretion, shedding, and succulence. Of the three mangrove species native to south Florida, the red mangrove utilizes exclusion, filtering out salt at the root surface.

The white and black mangroves on the other hand utilize secretion and shedding, a process where excess salt is collected in specialized glands in the leaves of the plant where it is eventually deposited to the leaf surface, and subsequently washed or blow away; alternately the plant will simply shed those leaves where excess salt has accumulated. The relative efficiencies of these mechanisms, and hence the capacities of mangrove species to accommodate their salt produces the characteristic zonation, where individual species success at any given location is a function of ambient soil salinity.

With increasing sea level rise and increasing salinity, south Florida’s mangrove communities are migrating inland and northward, towards higher ground due in part to localized peat collapse, where the increasing salt wedge is destabilizing microbial decomposition regimes, producing large ranges of soil that cannot accommodate the mangrove-marsh ecotone.

In the same way the mangrove previously colonized and dominated Miami Beach and the greater south Florida region, the south Florida metropolis must similarly adapt.

Coding for Salinity Observing an actively changing nature, and by extension the emergence of the future saline territory of south Florida, humans must take an accounting of the life sustaining structures and processes that nature has evolved to adapt to salt at the scale of the landscape. The component of that nature humans have the greatest agency over, the built environment, must seek to adjust in similar ways if it is to succeed in any meaningful way. To acknowledge this necessity, is also to acknowledge the prerequisite for cultural

adaptation that will facilitate the success of life in a saline south Florida. At base, the structural changes may yet manifest through a series of increasingly dramatic population, demographic, and land use shifts that will overtime reorganize the south Florida metropolis akin to the zonation observed in the mangrove-marsh ecotone separating salt tolerant development from nontolerant development. As all sustained urban activity will require adequate fresh water supply, water consumption and use policy will further delimit growth, rewarding adaptive strategies with increased opportunity and mobility across the cultural territory.

Ultimately, this adaptive capacity must be learned at the level of the “urban specimen,” the building, landscape, or site where salt and water will be actively managed and habitation sustained.

Currently, the social hierarchy of Miami Beach is organized on one principle: proximity to the ocean, and hence proximity to salt. Consequently, Miami Beach’s built environment has promoted the placement of structures and infrastructures at greatest risk from saltwater inundation nearest to and in the path of the rising tide.

Working within this paradigm, the future of Miami Beach lies in the reprogramming of the urban ground plain where salt, water, and the life of the city exist in synergy. In the way the red, white, and black mangrove each live with salt differently, so too must the distinct species of building in Miami Beach. Within these building communities, the spaces of the city which furnish its unique culture will transform in relation to salt and water to produce new forms and ways of living. The success of south Florida hinges on this opportunity, it is time to welcome a future with salt.

Flamingo Park Type A Salt Zoning

Mid BeachType B Salt Zoning

Lummus Park Type C Salt Zoning

ABOVE Lincoln Road Type D - Salt Zoning BELOW South Beach Type E

Emma Schnur

HOTEL FONTAINBLEAU IS A SYMBOL OF MIAMI BEACH, AMERICA’S FAVORITE TOURIST DESTINATION AND AN ICON OF CONSUMPTION. AS TRENDS SHIFTED FROM MODEST ART DECO STYLES, MORRIS LAPIDUS’ MIAMI MODERN HOTEL GAVE THE WEALTHY A FULLSCALE RESORT EXPERIENCE. JUST AS HOTELS TRANSFORMED TO CONDOS, CURRENT PARADIGMS OF SEA LEVEL WILL IMPACT FUTURE TYPOLOGICAL SHIFTS IN DEVELOPMENT.

condominium parcels hotel parcels

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Miami Beach 2015, transformed from a hotel driven market to condominium parcel.

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4,000 feet

In 1955, the director of the Miami Beach Hotel Association and former publisher of the Miami Beach Sun, Leon C. McAskill, claimed, “Miami Beach is the capitol of vacationland.”

McAskill’s words remain true today. With hundreds of hotels on just seven square miles of land, the city’s economy is based in its tourism industry. As such, real estate developers and the hotel industry have been very powerful actors in Miami Beach. An analysis of the history of the Fontainebleau Hotel reveals the tremendous role the hotel industry has played in shaping the landscape of Miami Beach.

Moreover, the Fontainebleau itself symbolizes a pivotal shift towards a culture of consumption and consumerism that America has embraced following World War II. The desire for bigger and more development poses both challenges and opportunities for managing sea level rise due to global climate change. As consumptive tastes pivot towards condo development in this millennium, the City of Miami Beach must find new ways to leverage politics and planning to curb development to save this vulnerable island from itself.

Before the Fountainebleau The first hotel in Miami Beach was built in 1914 and operated by W.J. Brown, also its owner. The Wofford Hotel followed second and the Breakers third, with the first big hotel development boom occurring in the 1920s. While the Collins family and Carl Fisher developed the middle and northern parts of the island with luxurious hotels and rental properties to cater to towards the rich, the Lummus brothers developed South Beach for the middle class. According to Drolet and Listokin, “Miami Beach’s first big boom came in the Roaring Twenties, when the overall prosperity of the country and the good fortune of the wealthy in particular made a resort city catering to the rich a very profitable endeavor…

The middle class was doing well too, however,

and the more modest playground of South Beach became a popular destination for those who were not wealthy by any means but had made enough money to take a vacation every once in a while.” By catering not only to the middle class, but also to a large Jewish population that was experiencing Anti-Semitism throughout the country, and even in the more northern areas of Miami Beach, the hotel industry on South Beach thrived. Even after a destructive hurricane in 1926 and the stock market crash in 1929, the middle class continued to pour into the mostly Art Deco South Beach hotels during the 1930s and 40s and they continued to be constructed throughout this time. Hotel Breakwater was built in 1936, The Webster in 1939, the Cadillac Hotel in 1940, The Carlyle in 1941, and so on.

While tourists and seasonal residents continued to frequent the hotels and rentals on South Beach after World War II, overall they were the same people who had been visiting the neighborhood since the 1930s. With the newfound prosperity following the war, the expanding middle class was no longer satisfied with the small and aging hotels on South Beach. Instead, the destination of choice became Middle Beach where large new hotels were constructed on the lots where industrial tycoons had built their mansions during the 1920s. Following 1946, bigger and better hotels were built each year such as the Empress with 284 rooms in 1952 and the DiLido with 329 rooms in 1953.

Lapidus’ Fountainebleau Hotel According to McAskill, “Hotel history in Miami Beach was made in 1954 with [hotel developer] Ben Novack et al., crashing into the world’s spotlight with the fabulous Fontainebleau on the site of the old Firestone Estate, Collins Avenue and the Ocean.” At the time of its construction in 1954, the Fontainebleau Hotel was eleven stories high with 545 rooms. In contrast to the primarily

YEAR BUILT

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500 1,000

1923 - 1929 1930 - 1939 1940 - 1949 1950 - 1959 1960 - 1979 1980 - 2012

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BREAKWATER

The majority of hotels in South Beach were constructed in the 1930s in the Art Deco style.

Middle Beach, with its fewer but larger hotels is associated with the Miami Modern style.

HOTEL YEAR BUILT 1923 - 1929 1930 - 1939 1940 - 1949 1950 - 1959 1960 - 1979 1980 - 2012

FONTAINEBLEAU

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Art Deco style of the South Beach hotels, the Fontainebleau was designed by the famous local architect Morris Lapidus in the Mid-Century Modern style, or Miami Modernism (MiMo), as it came to be known as. A pedestal faces the original Collins Avenue entrance of the hotel with the Lapidus-designed Chateau sitting on top of the pedestal. The Chateau is a crescent shaped building 150 feet in height that faces southeast towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Lapidus was very intentional in his design of the Fontainebleau Hotel. Like the work of Price in Atlantic City, Lapidus intended for a luxury resort-hotel that “sold the dreams of the 1950s.”

The hotel was specifically designed to epitomize the suburban landscape that dominated the physical and social formation of the United States by the middle of the century. As such, Lapidus created a heightened suburbia that made guests feel like they were at the country club: “isolated exclusivity, tropical gardens, swimming, poolside dining, dinner and dancing in formal attire every evening.” While the Art Deco hotels of South Beach had an urban feel with rows of buildings along a continuous street, the Fontainebleau condensed the suburb into a single resort. According to Thomas and Snyder, this made Miami Beach a contemporary resort in the process. Coming from a background in commercial design, Morris Lapidus understood the consumptive culture in America that began after World War II. While other architects such as Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe used their designs to critique patterns of contemporary life, Lapidus embraced them as the focus of his work. He understood how people lived and that what they liked was largely based off the commercial world and the media, specifically in the form of movies.

In a recommendation to the Historic Preservation Board to nominate the Fontainebleau Hotel for inclusion in the National Register for Historic Places, then Director of

Planning for Miami Beach, Jorge. G. Gomez, writes, “The construction of the Fontainebleau Hotel represents a shift in emphasis in providing tourist accommodations in Miami Beach from catering to middle-class patrons to catering to members of the new post-war mobile upper middle class and the wealthy. This change would help redefine and reinvigorate the tourist economy of the Miami Beach during the 1950s and have profound effects on the demographic character of the community.” A full-scale resort atmosphere could provide visitors with exceptional amenities that could not have been accommodated in smaller hotels such as ballrooms, conference rooms, restaurants, pool decks, theaters, and more. After the construction of the Fontainebleau, a number of other large resort hotels were built along Collins Avenue.

Constructed in 1955, the Eden Roc Miami Beach was also designed by Morris Lapidus as a resort hotel in the MiMo style. The commission of Lapidus to design the Eden Roc for Harry Mufson, Ben Novack’s ex partner, directly north of the Fontainebleau Hotel caused a permanent falling out between the architect and Novack.

During the late 1950s, A. Herbert Mathes was commissioned by Novack to design the Grand Ballroom and the North Tower additions to the hotel, the latter of which become known as the “world’s biggest spite fence.” Mathes was supposedly directed by Novack to design a blank wall of concrete along the north wall of the 14-story tower, sending large shadows across the swimming, sunbathing, and cabana areas of the Eden Roc. Seeking to enjoin the construction of the North Tower, the owners of the Eden Roc sued the owners of the Fontainebleau in the case of Fontainebleau Hotel Corp v. Forty-Five TwentyFive, Inc. At the time of the lawsuit, about eight stories had been built. The owners of the Eden Roc based their suit on the right to free flow of

HOTEL BREAKWATER SOUTH BEACH

edwards apts. collins ave.

breakwater

lummus park

sea wall

beach ocean

ocean dr.

base elevation ~ 5 feet

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FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL MIDDLE BEACH

bay

fontainebleau hotel

pool

beach

collins ave.

base elevation ~ 10 feet

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200 feet

GREEN DIAMOND CONDO MIDDLE BEACH

bay

collins ave.

parking lot/ tennis court

green diamond

beach

base elevation ~ 13 feet

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light and air by claiming that the Fontainebleau’s addition would cast a shadow that would render the beach in front of the Eden Roc unusable.

The judge decided in favor of the Fontainebleau by reasoning that, while no landowner should use their property to injure the lawful rights of a neighbor, they are not bound by law to ensure the free flow of light and air across the neighbor’s land. In the end, this court case determined that property development would be hindered if everybody had a right to unobstructed views and the free flow of light and air. The “spite fence” remained until the Eden Roc added a twentystory tower next to the Fontainebleau’s North Tower in 2006.

From hotels to condominiums.

The Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc, along with most of Miami Beach’s oceanfront lots, are located in the RM-3 Residential Multifamily, High Intensity Zoning District. Though the maximum number of stories for oceanfront lots in this district is 22 and the maximum height is 200 feet, there are a number of much larger hotels and condominium apartment buildings. For example, the Setai Hotel and Residences on Collins Avenue is 386 feet and 38 stories. The Blue Diamond and Green Diamond buildings are each 559 feet tall with 44 stories. Not only are condominium apartments taller, but also they represent the current driving force in Miami Beach’s real estate.

Only five hotels have been built in the city since 2000, a fraction of the number of condominiums erected. These condos represent the next shift towards catering to the world’s elite. According to Christie’s International Real Estate, Miami is one of the top markets for luxury homes, just below New York, London, and Hong Kong.

A 2015 telephone survey to 105 top real estate professionals by the Miami Herald and a Miami-based polling firm, Bendixen & Amandi International, provides valuable insight into the dynamics of development in Miami Beach and

the Miami market as a whole. According to those surveyed, 68% percent believe that now is the time to buy while only 22% believe now is the time to rent in Miami [3% gave no answer and 7% said both]. When asked about the buyers in the residential market, 56% said that the buyers are foreign, 16% said they are out-oftown [mostly from New York], and only 11% said they are local. In terms of sub-markets, Miami Beach and Brickell came out as Miami’s hottest neighborhoods, yet the real estate professionals believed they were overvalued and places that they would avoid buying in altogether. According to one person polled, “The traffic is crazy [in Miami Beach] and the water could rise. … I really don’t know if it’s worth it.” Though there is uncertainty for Miami Beach’s future, it certainly is not curbing the development of its residential real estate.

While Miami Beach’s real estate market has experienced tremendous shifts in the last few decades, as has the Fontainebleau Hotel. In the 1970s, the hotel was struggling and it nearly went bankrupt. In order to save the Fontainebleau, developer Steven Russ renovated the hotel and signed over its operations to the Hilton. It became a convention success, though it faced a tumultuous journey. In 2005, developer Jeff Soffer purchased the Fontainebleau and embarked on a $1 billion renovation in order to build a condo hotel on the property. Nakheel Leisure of Dubai paid $375 million for a 50 percent share in the hotel when Soffer was experiencing a cash crunch. The recession hit one month after the Fontainebleau was unveiled in November 2008.

On December 13, 2013, the government of Dubai sold back its 50 percent share, at a time when Dubai was looking to unload assets for cash. A provision of the sale includes a generous bonus if Florida legalizes resort casinos, letting Dubai retroactively collect what its share would be worth at the time of sale if the Fontainebleau had a casino.

As more buildings rise, from early hotels to the current condominium culture, undeveloped land dwindles. This creates challenges for city planners and other government officials in Miami Beach, especially as the city prepares for sea level rise and the effects of global climate change. The lack of publicly owned, open land makes it almost impossible for municipal concerns to leave vulnerable areas undeveloped or utilize adaptation techniques to manage frequent flooding in the city. With the real estate and tourism industries fueling the island’s economy, city officials are left with the difficult task of imposing careful regulations on private property without biting the hand that feeds it.

Condo development in Miami Beach simply requires you to “follow the money.” While U.S. real estate investors, and even residents and businesses, are shying away from Miami Beach real estate because of the danger of sea level rise, foreign investors, specifically from Latin America, are not. The risks are less than investing in their home countries. Further, many of these foreign investors will never even visit their properties and believe flood insurance can take care of any issues. Real estate agents are also ambiguous about the risks associated with investing in Miami Beach.

As such, developers will build these properties because the demand for them exists and their involvement has a relatively small time horizon. The City of Miami Beach is left in a catch-22 because they need the taxes from the waterfront condominiums to pay for stormwater infrastructure that can protect them from the rising seas. In 2013 alone, the City collected $128 million in property taxes. From a budget standpoint, this is necessary because the State of Florida collects no income tax that could otherwise help fund infrastructure improvements.

Without placing a moratorium on new development, the only way to decrease construction is to disrupt the current system that incentivizes the City of Miami Beach ‘s reliance on development. Slowing the streamlined development process could involve lengthening the time horizon for real estate developers.

When they only have a timeline of 5 or 10 years, there is no incentive for them to be concerned about sea level rise. Should they have to sign a contract with the city that requires them to hold a stake in the property for 25 years or more, they may think more critically about the area’s vulnerabilities. Another possible way to reduce the demand for condos from foreign investors is to implement a pied-à-terre tax on multi-million dollar investment properties. Other cities such as New York have discussed this approach as a means of curbing absentee ownership purely for investment purposes, which has partly contributed to the city’s housing crisis. Other measures could involve mandating real estate agents and brokers to present scientific facts about sea level rise in Miami Beach to prospective buyers or to require actuarially sound flood insurance rates with a higher premium for outof-town owners.

If the funding stream from fees and property taxes associated with condominium development and ownership to the City of Miami Beach is stemmed, alternative measures of funding infrastructure improvements could be explored.

If the State implemented an income tax which could help fund stormwater management, then the City would not have to rely so heavily on property taxes. If there is less development and thus more open land, Miami Beach could reevaluate preparedness.

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mandate developers hold anot stake mandate developers totax hold anot stake create a state income tax so all create aagents state income so all require / brokers to discuss require agents /to brokers to discuss inofscripted their properties for ~25 years to in properties for ~25real years to Miami Beach’s infrastructure oftheir Miami Beach’s infrastructure statement about risks scripted statement about real risks lengthen their time horizons lengthen their time horizons funds comes from R.E. taxes funds comes from R.E. taxes ofof sea level rise on property sea level rise on property

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useuse tax tax revenue for for mangrove revenue mangrove restoration or buyouts / relocation restoration or buyouts / relocation costs instead of infrastrcuture costs instead of infrastrcuture

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One way to curb private residential real estate development in Miami Beach is to disrupt the system that fosters it. One solution will not do. Rather, a myriad of policy changes should be implemented that require private developers and foreign investors to realistically consider the consequences of sea level rise. At the time same, there needs to be an alternative way to protect Miami Beach from the impacts of climate change other than through real estate taxes.

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Adria Boynton

ROOT MIAMI BEACH CAN SPECIFY RHIZOMATOUS, SALT-TOLERANT GRASSES AS A FORM OF URBAN ADAPTATION, ENCOURAGING AN INCREASE IN PERVIOUS SURFACES AND WATER ABSORPTION. BY TAKING CUES FROM THE EVERGLADES’ SAWGRASS SP., PLANTS WITH DEPENDABLE ROOT MASS WILL HELP MITIGATE LOCALIZED FLOODING.

Sawgrass

Sugarcane

Cattail

Major Roads Everglades National Park Stormwater Treatment Areas Cities and Towns Golf Courses 6â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Sea Level Rise

60 mi

The lessons of Everglades’ sawgrass can be used to inform resiliency planning in Miami Beach. Key features of rhizomatous spread, mat formation, competition, and managed disturbance need to be taken seriously as forms of urban adaptation. The city can use roots as a tool to alleviate chronic flooding, choosing plants that can absorb water and be strengthened by disruption. This project proposes replacing ornamental species with local, salt-tolerant turf grasses, using the nostalgia surrounding the “River of Grass” to transfer ideas of rhizomatous plants to urban contexts.

As Thomas Lodge remarks, “If a single word had to be used to describe the Everglades, it would be sawgrass” (Lodge 2010, 35). Even the origins of the region’s name point to a close relationship.

The Miccosukee Native Americans referred to the Everglades as “Pa-hay-okee,” meaning “grassy water” (Lodge 2010, 3). And in the early 1700’s an English surveyor named Gerard de Brahm dubbed the Everglades “River Glades,” as in “River of Grass” (Douglas 2007, 7). The term was later transcribed onto a map as “Everglades,” and by 1819 the name had stuck (Douglas 2007, 8). The history of Florida is also the history of a relationship forged by sawgrass.

For a long time the Everglades remained unmapped, marked only as a blank space in the Floridian territory. As neither land nor water, it resisted labeling conventions. Marjory Douglas explains, “It may be that the mystery of the Everglades is the sawgrass, so simple, so enduring, so hostile. It was the sawgrass and the water which divided east coast from west coast and made the central solitudes that held in them the secrets of time, which has moved here so long unmarked” (Douglas 2007, 15). Sawgrass was an early settler’s worst nightmare: a sharp, unyielding plant, the very presence of sawgrass hampered the exploration and mapping processes that acted as the first step toward curious discovery and hostile conquest.

As Elizabeth Kolbert remarks, “The same features that now make South Florida so vulnerable—it’s flatness, its high water table, its heavy

rains—are the features that brought the Everglades into being” (Kolbert 2015, 50). The glades were originally a huge system of slow moving water propelled by the wind. The water began in a chain of lakes in Northern Florida that overflowed during heavy rains, spilling south to join the Kissimmee River, and eventually reaching Lake Okeechobee. Then the lake would overflow and the water would continue moving south, where the greatest expanse of sawgrass began.

The entire cycle was fed by rainfall and plants filtered the water as it traveled south (Douglas 2007, 14).

Only about half of the original Everglades still exist (Kolbert 2015, 45). The rapid spread of agriculture, infrastructure, and development cut off most of the freshwater that once supplied the Everglades watershed. Altered hydrology, along with fire suppression, led to saltwater intrusion, peat collapse, invasive species, and rising levels of phosphorus. These increased levels are partly due to nutrient-rich runoff from fertilizer used in suburbia, but most of the phosphorus can be traced back to agriculture. Sugarcane farming in cities like Belle Glade unearthed the belowground nutrients that had built up over time.

Draining the Everglades exposed the peat soil, nicknamed “black gold” by farmers (Santaniello 2003), and tilling the soil exposed the phosphorus. Rainwater washed this nutrient into the Everglades and in some areas phosphorus levels reached thirty times the safe amount. Increased nutrients spurred the rapid growth of cattails, which quickly began crowding out the native sawgrass (Pittman 2003).

Sawgrass is adapted to nutrient-low environments but cattails flourish under nutrient-high conditions. As phosphorus levels increased, so did cattail populations. However, this side effect of increasing phosphorus levels also offered a solution. The cattails, at first demonized as an invasive weed, were later used by the state of Florida in Stormwater Treatment Areas, or STA’s.

ALLIGATOR HOLE

DENSE STANDS

LITTER LINE

OCT

NOV

DEC

JAN

53℉ 77℉

53℉ 77℉

576℉ 750℉

576℉ 750℉ SEDGES MATCH PRE-BURN HEIGHTS WITHIN 1-2 YEARS

90℉ 90% H

STAND WILL BURN WITHIN HOURS AFTER RAIN

90℉ 90% H

SAWGRASS CAN BURN EVERY YEAR

90℉ 90% H

SEDGES BEGIN TO DIE

90℉ 90% H

90℉ 90% H

NEW SPROUTS BEGIN TO SHOW

90℉ 90% H

FEB

SEEDS MATURE AND BEGIN TO DROP

STALKS BEGIN TO FLOWER

SEPT

JULY 53℉ 77℉

1/2”

AUG

JUNE

APRIL

NEW GROWTH CAN SHOW WITHIN A DAY OF A BURN

MAY

MARCH

STALKS REACH FULL FLOWER

13’

1’

6-8”

6-10’

1.5’

SPARSE STANDS

8 ft

Sawgrass’ rhizomes protect the plant from wildfires and fluctuating water levels.

These environments were built between agricultural developments and protected areas of the Everglades. Besides providing habitat for birds and alligators, STA’s use plants like cattails to filter and store phosphorus before those nutrients can reach what remains of the Everglades (SFWMD 2014).

Rhizomatous Roots As a widespread monoculture, the spread of sawgrass can act as an indicator of the overall health of the Everglades. The name “sawgrass” is somewhat misleading, but indicates the general cultural attitude towards the species. Although the plant does have tiny saw tooth bristles along its leaves, sawgrass is actually a sedge, not a grass (Silberhorn 1999, 221). Sawgrass generally grows 3 to 10 feet tall and has a fruiting stage that lasts from the beginning of summer through the end of the fall. Sawgrass’ fruits look like nuts and are surrounded by a protective sac (Silberhorn 1999, 227).

The nut-like seeds drop into the below-water muck and when the sedge dies, it adds to deep layers of decaying sawgrass tissue from which young plants

sprout. Seeds have a low survival rate, so most sawgrass growth occurs from an extensive system of underground rhizomes. This system allows sawgrass to flourish even when exposed to fluctuating water levels and frequent fires (Uchytil 1992).

A typical yearly growth cycle includes a wet season, during which water can reach a feet and a half above ground, and a dry season, during which the water sinks to a foot below the earth (Lodge 2010, 9). The wet season begins in May and ends by November, coinciding with hurricane season. Early European settlers associated sawgrass with the prediction of impending storms: they thought that Native Americans retreated into secret caves in the Everglades Keys after being warned of an approaching hurricane by “the blossoming of the sawgrass” (Lodge 2010, 27).The Everglades’ dry season lasts throughout the winter months. During this part of the year, water levels fall, sawgrass dries out, and the landscape becomes vulnerable to fire. This is part of the lifecycle of sawgrass and the layers of ash in the below-water muck are telltale signs of fires set by lighting, Native Americans, and more recent prescribed burns (Lodge 2010, 13).

Rhizomatous plants spread rapidly, creating thick, resilient monotypic mat-like conditions.

SWITCHGRASS PANICUM VIRGATUM

SAWGRASS CLADIUM MARISCUS CLADIUM JAMAICENSES RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH MAINTENANCE NEEDS

1 DAY

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH MAINTENANCE NEEDS

LOW 12”

OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL

OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL

SALINITY TOLERANCE

LOW

SALINITY TOLERANCE

GREYWATER TOLERANCE

LOW

GREYWATER TOLERANCE

HIGH MED LOW MED LOW

EROSION CONTROL

MED

EROSION CONTROL

HIGH

RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

MED

RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

HIGH

CARPET GRASS AXONOPUS COMPRESSUS

ST. AUGUSTINE GRASS STENOTAPHRUM SECUNDATUM

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH

LOW

MAINTENANCE NEEDS OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL

HIGH LOW

GREYWATER TOLERANCE

LOW

EROSION CONTROL

HIGH HIGH

RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

BERMUDAGRASS CYNODON DACTYLON

OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL

MAINTENANCE NEEDS

HIGH LOW

SALINITY TOLERANCE

LOW

GREYWATER TOLERANCE

LOW

EROSION CONTROL RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

HIGH MED

PASPALUM GRASS PASPALUM VAGINATUM

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH MAINTENANCE NEEDS

HIGH

OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL HIGH

SALINITY TOLERANCE

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH

HIGH

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH MAINTENANCE NEEDS

MED

OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL

LOW

1-2 WEEKS LOW 6”-2”

SALINITY TOLERANCE

MED

SALINITY TOLERANCE

HIGH

GREYWATER TOLERANCE

MED

GREYWATER TOLERANCE

HIGH

EROSION CONTROL RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

HIGH MED

EROSION CONTROL RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

Potential municipal plant list of rhizomatic matting species, suggesting a range of conditions.

MED HIGH

CATTAILS TYPHA LATIFOLIA

SUGARCANE SACCHARUM OFFICINARUM

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH

RATE OF RHIZOME GROWTH

LOW

MAINTENANCE NEEDS OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL

HIGH MED

SALINITY TOLERANCE GREYWATER TOLERANCE EROSION CONTROL RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

HIGH MED LOW MED

MAINTENANCE NEEDS

MED LOW

OPTIMAL WATER LEVEL SALINITY TOLERANCE

HIGH LOW

GREYWATER TOLERANCE EROSION CONTROL RESILIENCE TO DISRUPTION

MED LOW HIGH

Phytohydraulics Sea level rise and flooding are issues of critical concern in Miami Beach. High tide levels have increased annually by almost an inch in the Miami area (Kolbert 2015, 42). What if Miami Beach specified rhizomatous, salt-tolerant grasses as a form of urban adaptation? Encouraging pervious surfaces would increase water absorption rates despite tourism-related disturbances. By taking cues from Everglades’ sawgrass, plant species with dependable root mass could help alleviate localized flooding.

This project proposes the strategic use of roots in Miami Beach to help manage some of the city’s frequent flooding events. Comparable to using cattails to soak up phosphorus, rhizomatous grasses can be used to soak up large amounts of superficial water. Known as phytohydraulics (Kennen and Kirkwood 2015, 39), “each year, plants in North America move more water than all the rivers in North America combined” (Kennen and Kirkwood 2015, 29). And there are other benefits. Grasses can be irrigated with greywater, helping to preserve limited supplies of freshwater. Plants also become community assets that offer educational opportunities and new habitats, all while improving soil quality and countering erosion and the urban heat island effect.

Grasses are well equipped for plant competition and external disturbances because they spread quickly in resilient, monotypic mats (Arber 1934, 323). A comparison of several rhizomatous grasses shows that paspalum would be particularly well suited the conditions in Miami Beach. Durable paspalum rhizomes could be integrated into the city as green roofs, green walls, green patios, green parking lots, and green sidewalks. Any previously impervious surface would become porous.

This strategy could also be incorporated with other resiliency measures: for example, an add-on green wall could include a temporary window cover that would soak up more water and help protect against hurricane force winds.

Provincetown, MA used to have a “Beach Grass Committee” responsible for planting Marram-grass on uncovered sand (regardless of property lines) in order to avoid sand-storms (Arber 1934, 339). A similar committee could be created for Miami Beach. Imagine the city draped in grass.

By echoing the properties of sawgrass and increasing the city’s levels of porosity, rhizomatous plants like paspalum can tackle flooding in Miami Beach armed only with the power of a single root system.

Exaggerated coverage, Miami Beach as shown with flat surfaces: porous parks, parking, and green roofs.

Shanika Hettige

CLIMATE FLORIDA CAN TAKE SOLACE IN HAVING PREVIOUSLY BENEFITED FROM CLIMATE DISTURBANCES, BEING INFORMED BY THE OPPORTUNITIES EMBEDDED IN CHANGE, AND HAVING THE RESOURCES TO BENEFIT FROM CLIMATIC TRENDS. MIAMI BEACH HAS AND WILL CONTINUE TO TAKE THESE SHIFTS IN STRIDE.

1862: Homestead Act enacted

by President Abraham Lincoln

Governance

1917: Miami Beach incorporated as city

1889: 1894: Flagler Train extended servicingttoo Palm Beach Jacksonville 1900: Earliest seawalls to 1896:

1915: 1965: 3 hotels, 2 bath houses, Major nourishment aquarium, 18 hole projects golf course in Miami Beach along Miami 1925: Beach Daytona First passenger train arrives in Miami, Nearly 1,000 subdivisions businesses and buildings established under construction in Miami Area 1851: 1871: 1888: 1909: 1928: 1949: 1960: 1975: 1945:Unnamed [4] Donna [4] Great Middle Florida [3] Unnamed [3] Unnamed [3] Unnamed[3] Okeechobee [4] Eloise [3] 1950: 1873: 1917: 1933: Unnamed [4] 1894: 1964: 1947: Easy [3] Unnamed [3] Unnamed [3] Unnamed [3] Unnamed [3] Cleo [2] 1950: [4] 1935: Unnamed 1877: 1919: 1896: 1965: King [4] Labor Day [5] 1948: Unnamed [3] Unnamed [4] Unnamed [3] 1906: Betsy [3] 1882: 1926: 1944:Unnamed [4] Unnamed [3] Unnamed [3] Great Miami [4] Unnamed [3] 1920: 1895: Tourism More than industry 90% of established orange crops destroyed

Infrastructure

Florida major hurricanes

Primary industries

Florida impact freezes

1896: Miami incorporated as city

1835: Freeze ends attempts to commercially grow citrus in South Georgia, southeast South Carolina and Northern Florida

1917: 1894-1895: Freeze Freeze devastated citrus growers and rearranged the geography of Florida citrus industry

1934: 1940: Freeze Freeze

1957: Freeze 1962: Freeze

1899: Freeze 1892: Charter provided to extend rail to Miami, Flagler uninterested 1892-1895: Flagler and Tuttle correspond 1897: Royal Palm Hotel opens 1886: 1895: 1874: Tuttle sends blossoms, Tuttle visits Tuttle widowed proves oranges father’s 1886: did not freeze in Miami homestead in Tuttle writes Rockefeller Lemon City, first 1891: lays eyes Tuttle inherits fathers’ land, on Miami land moves to pursue development

Tuttle 10,000,000

1992: Andrew [5] 1995: Opal [3]

2004: 2004: [4] Charley 2004: Dennis [3] 2004: Ivan [3] 2004: Wilma [3] Frances [2] 2004: Jeane [3]

1983: 1989: Freeze Fifth impact freeze, second 1981: Freeze in a single decade 1985: 1977: Following 1983 damage, Freeze freeze added to impact freeze conditions

1885: Flagler enters railroad business

Flagler

1985: Elena [3]

1,000,000

100,000

10,000

1,000

100

10

Est. 2014

2005

2010

1995

2000

1985

1990

1975

1980

1965

1970

1955

1960

1945

1950

1935

Detailed timeline of Miami Beach history in the context of climate events.

1940

1925

1930

1915

1920

1905

1910

1895

1900

1885

1890

1875

1880

1865

1870

1855

1860

1845

1850

1840

1

While the rest of the world may quiver at the warnings of loss and the daunting challenge of mass adaptation, Florida can take solace in having previously benefited from climate disturbances, being informed by the opportunities embedded in change, and having the resources to prosper from climatic trends. The City of Miami Beach has the ability to leverage its economy and transform the threats of changing climate conditions to both expand and rebrand the local identity. Miami Beach has and will continue to take these shifts in stride.

had visited on occasion and after the death of her husband and her parents, she settled near the homesteaded land and set out to push for development. At the time, in 1891, this land lying just below the mouth of the Miami River was home to fewer than one thousand people and was luscious with greenery, described by John Sewell, as “all woods”2. Driven to succeed, Tuttle made her home at the site of Fort Dallas, acquiring more land, and finding her way into the networks of Standard Oil millionaire, Henry M. Flagler.

By revisiting the Great Freeze of 1894 and the resulting flourishing of Miami Beach, this research postulates that in the face of crisis the core values of industry and wellbeing are linked to climate. They amalgamate as foundational Floridian priorities.

Flagler, credited by Rockefeller for being the brains behind their empire3, had brought his fortune and ill wife to St. Augustine, Florida in the hopes that the agreeable temperatures would restore her health4. Aside from financing hotels like the Ponce de Leon and the Royal Palm, Flagler built schools, hospitals, churches, and in 1885 undertook ownership and development of railroads that would soon grow to be the Florida East Coast Railway Company. By 1889, Flagler was servicing from Jacksonville to Daytona.

Soon after, landowners were petitioning for the train line to extend further southward along the Indian River to stimulate the development of New Smyrna, Titusville, and as of 1894, the area now known as Palm Beach5.

In this vein, the climate of Miami Beach has long been its biggest asset. Embedded in a biome more closely tied to the tropical forests of the Caribbean, coastal West Africa, and Indo-China, it has been crucial to the city’s existence that the southern tip of the Sunshine State is classified unlike any other area in the United States.

From its inception as a byproduct of the orange industry and through its development as a vibrant vacation spot, climate regimes and biogeography have defined the potential, the progress and the prosperity of Miami Beach, Florida.

During the late 1800s climate shifts radically changed the horticultural, social, infrastructural, and economic geography of the state. The Great Freeze of 1894 was the flare that ignited a pivotal southward migration towards Miami, and ultimately Miami Beach.

Prior to this, significant foundations had been set and powerful players had been pursued

by Ohioan, Ms. Julia Tuttle. In the eighteenseventies, Tuttle’s father and his partner, William Brickell, purchased land in Lemon City, Biscayne Bay under the Homestead Act of 1862. Tuttle

Julia Tuttle, like many others aimed to entice Flagler to stretch the railroad to new, fruitful frontiers. For years she made attempts; reports say that frequent propositions were made offering land to Mr. Flagler for a town site6 7 . The two had exchanged letters and Tuttle even paid Flagler a visit to discuss the matter.

Unfortunately, although Flagler was able, he denied the proposals finding no reason appealing enough to invest there8.

However, as the Christmas of 1894 came and passed, temperatures plummeted unusually below freezing. The New Year was rung in with the devastation of citrus and vegetable crops

Global habitat types highlighted: Tropical and subtrocial moist forests mis-aligning south florida with the rest of continental USA.

ST. AUGUSTINE

PALM BEACH

8 b : 15 - 20 ° F 9 a : 20 - 25 ° F 9 b : 25 - 30 ° F 10 a : 30 - 35 ° F 10b : 35 - 40 ° F

MIAMI BEACH

FLORIDA EAST COAST RAILWAY COMPANY NATIONAL RAILROADS COASTLINES BATHYMETRIC CONTOURS SCALE: 1:750,000

Plant Hardiness Zones and expansion of Florida East Coast railroad stations.

2010

2050

2090

Temperature patterns are expected to shift across Florida state, made apparent by Plant Hardiness Zones. These boundaries are defined by average temperature lows in 5° F intervals. Depicted from left to right are 2010 recorded zones and those projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for years 2050 and 2090, respectively.

across the state, even in balmy Palm Beach. “It seemed, for the moment, that no orange tree in the state was safe. Thousands of disappointed settlers began returning north. It seemed that Florida’s future was doomed. The situation greatly depressed Flagler, not only because of the money he would lose but because he felt a paternal affection for the state and its inhabitants – at one point, he turned to his associate Ingraham and ordered: ‘You can use $50,000, or $100,000, or $200,000. I would rather lose it all, and more, than that one man, woman, or child should starve,’” writes Eric Rutkow9.

It was at this crucial point that Tuttle sent a timely package of healthy orange blossoms from the southern-most plant hardiness zone. With the combined value of life and livelihood in mind, Flagler was immediately convinced to extend his railroad. In exchange for hundreds of acres of land on both sides of the Miami River from Tuttle

and the Brickells, he laid the foundations for a city and established a hotel, expanding onward toward the Keys10.

From then on Miami underwent its rapid metamorphosis into the bustling city it is today.

In February 1896, merchant Isidor Cohen proclaimed in his journals, “Buildings are springing up in every direction as if by magic”.

By then banks and newspapers had been established and by March general stores and doctoral practices were founded. That April the first passenger train had arrived in Miami11.

Growth bled into Miami Beach until it too swelled into its own city in 1917, now colonized by upscale hotels, winter homes for the American elite, and a slew of recreational amenities (Figure 1).

Considering longer time scales, the Great Freeze of 1894 falls into a pattern of significant Florida freezes increasing in frequency. They

The causeway named for Julia Tuttle.

contributed to further regional growth over time and increased interest in the warmth the area had to offer. Subtropical Miami Beach sold its charm as the idyllic tropical paradise. Since October 1895, however, Miami and its home state have also endured countless hurricanes, which have not sent large portions of the population fleeing as the frosts did12. Note though that their increase in frequency and severity does correlate to slowed rate of population growth from the 1930s onwards.

Much like the transplants to northern Florida had once tried to protect their assets with menial plywood and canvas covers, current residents of the state â&#x20AC;&#x201C; particularly those in Miami and Miami Beach â&#x20AC;&#x201C; do the same with groynes and jetties, sea walls, and the raising of land (Figure 5). As pressures build, these piece-meal adaptations will be unable to keep up with extreme climate events. Florida again finds itself in need of a

far-sighted idea catalyzed by an awareness of how environmental risks threaten long-term prosperity.

Successors to Tuttle and Flagler, the modern decision makers of the Miami area will have to be swift in execution when the full onset of climate change and sea level rise begin to impact Miami.

IPCC projections into 2090 indicate that average temperature low fluctuations will eventually settle with the Beach one plant hardiness zone higher. The city can already begin learning from tropical regions with similar climate patterns and work with the new zones to strategize future use of florae and associated economic and recreational prospects.

It is clear that Miami Beach is not isolated from the indirect impacts of changing temperatures in other areas of the world. Increased heat will ultimately lead to a rise in sea levels. Given

the region’s low elevation profile and geological makeup, the city will soon have permanent expanses of inundation. At a 5 foot sea level rise, a majority of the city will be underwater.

Recognizing ecological dissimilarity, the future conditions of Miami Beach are reminiscent of the iconic Everglades to the west, where water, land and life coexist.

Perhaps the region can look to its biggest industry – tourism – as a vehicle for change. Capable of redirecting some of the burdens of adaptation and loss, it is directly tied to Florida’s distinctive climate, and would benefit from the increase in sea and sun. Hotels can be engaged to expand their market and the seasonal population it brings in. Florida and its people might consider this tool as an option to continue using the Miami Beach land as an economic resource, while reducing the number of permanent residences and infrastructural assets at risk. In favor of this, recent population trends show decreases in total residents but increases in seasonal residents, non-resident workers, and hotel guests. The industry, obviously well established, presents business savvy leaders who have the most to gain from making the transformation. Taking a closer look at the projected water levels, residences on the west side of Miami Beach and its Venetian islands are predominantly compromised while the strip of extravagant hotels on the city’s east side is left unscathed.

Conceivably, introducing “hurricane ready hotels” or “high-tide hotels” is a way to introduce both elevated shelters connected by a series of stilted bridges, as well as a way to incorporate natural coastal barriers such as wave dissipaters or mangroves and pine forests that protect the still unflooded land and are managed for recreational tourism propose variations on potential hightide hotels). With less demand during hurricane season, hotels can also find alternate functions such as acting as evacuation and supply storage hubs for those in the immediate vicinity.

Phasing new development through stages of Paspalum use, promotion of cabana style hotels, the raising of smaller buildings and planting of mangroves protected in their early stages by rubble mound wave dissipaters, and strategically working from southwest to northeast, Miami might explore opportunities to prolong impacts of sea level rise in ways that transition the coastal barrier island into a hybrid form of retreat. These modifications would be pursued in conjunction with expansion of commuter transport and subsidizing residency in the northern areas where the city is less vulnerable.

Changes in physical and industrial standards might be incentivized through reductions in tourist development taxes and increases on personal property taxes. Later stages of the adaptation approach could focus on curating mangroves and waterways for sporting activities and on further promoting cruisebased tourism. Without being permanently occupied, the city could continue to act as a key economic and cultural node of the United States.

Miam Beach, as we know it today, has hope.

The commitment and capacity of the Floridian people to leverage their assets and protect their socio-economic wellbeing from climate disturbances creates opportunity for a positive transformation, just as it has before. In the face of these new challenges, what will be Miami’s next orange blossom and who will dare to dream as Tuttle and Flagler did?

An isometric view of southern Miami Beach envisions a new city network under conditions of 1 foot and 5 foot sea level rise.

Lindsay Woodson

ZONE IN PRACTICE, ZONING IS RARELY ABLE TO APPLY PREEMPTIVE PRACTICES TO PLACE BASED DYNAMICS. AS A PRIMARY TOOL THAT GOVERNS THE EVOLUTION OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, PERHAPS ZONING CAN BE RE-IMAGINED AS A TOOL FOR HELPING DEFINE THE VALUE OF RESILIENCE BASED PLANNING EFFORTS. MIAMI BEACH IS UNIQUELY POSITIONED TO DEFINE RESILIENCE THROUGH ZONING ARTICULATING ITS CAPACITY TO ADAPT TO VULNERABILITY.

The definition of resilience shifts the nature of the catastrophe, once retreat is removed from the typical equation.

30

Sandy

Lee

Irene

Ike Gustav

Wilma Katrina Rita

Floyd

National Flood Insurance Program Debt (1980 - 2015) Billion (US$)

28

25 24

20 19

15

10

5

0

0 1980

1985

NO DEBT

1990

0

1995

2000

2005

2010

06

PROJECTION

$24 billion owed by the National Flood Insurance Program

2015

Source : Adopted from Congressional Research Service Report, June 2012 (GAO). NFIP began in 1968, in the wake of Hurricane Betsy and rogram modernization made data accessible in the late 1970s.

Spring 2015

ADV09304 / Independent Thesis for Degree Masters of Design Studies

LWOODSON

Retreat is not an option Within the terms of climate change, and the threat of sea level rise or increased storm intensity, resilience can be defined as the cumulative capacity to retreat, mitigate, or adapt.

How can the operational capability of resilience be defined without retreat? A fundamental component of retreat is a property buyout.

Flood buyout is a voluntary agreement between the state government and private landowners, to relocate life and property. Landowners are offered pre-storm fair market value for their land and structural assets, if contextually located on vulnerable sites. As a mitigation strategy, acquired properys then deed restricted to open space in perpetuity.

Miami Beach exemplifies a distinct condition unto itself. It is a man-made archipelago of highend dense island enclaves. To the west, the Gulf Coast encapsulates a separate condition. It is an expansive floodplain dotted by rural lowincome communities. Buyout policy has deep

roots in small towns across the United States.

But for many neighborhoods, flood buyout is not a welcomed option. Due to extreme high land values, developer stronghold, and indispensable tourist economy, retreat is not an option for Miami Beach.

Resilience has resounding effects as a term, post Sandy and Katrina. It is used in various disciplines but has become growingly persistent in defining, detailing and funding strategies related to responding to climate change events. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask ‘what is resilience?’

While various scholars have been writing about resilience since the early 1970s, it seems that insisting on clarification within differing contexts will elevate its defining features. Further, the more applicable and perceptable inquiry can become: ‘what can resilience can do?’

Ultimately, resilience must enter into a dialogue with municipal response, hinging on how the built environment can perform within varying intensities of environmental risk.

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GSD Students Adria Boynton, MDES 2017 Althea Northcross, MLA I 2016 Thomas Nideroest, MLA II 2016 Tyler Mohr, MLA II 2016 Patrick Mayfield, MARCH AP 2016 Elizabeth Langer, MLA AP 2016 Shanika Hettige, MDES 2016 Justin Henceroth, MDES 2017 Dave Hampton, MDES 2016 Emma Schnur, MUP 2016 Mikela de Tchaves, MUD 2016 Foad Vahidi, MLA I 2016 Lindsay Woodson, MUP 2016