Shurui Zhang
About


YearProject
Tags
 OngoingChinatown is Chinatown, Flushing is China OngoingHarlem Schist OngoingChubby Cat Happy Chat 2024 Before the After: Representing Climate Actions in the Age of AI 2024East Harlem Polder2023BQE Vision Plan 2022Toledo River Walk2022Mapping Landscape Architects’ Expertise 2021Seeding Coral 2020Adaptation Handbook 2020Shroom Drone2019Elemental Houses 2019Shared Surfaces 2019We are Martinsville 2019Dutch Windmill Study 2018Other Natures 2018Disaster Coordination Center 2018Amphibious Life of Future Meadowland2017Reprogramming Domesticity 2017Mind and Body

Adaptation Handbook

    Thesis
    Advisor: Bradley Cantrell
    2020


      The Eastern Shore of Virginia is a peninsula situated between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean comprising two counties: Accomack and Northampton. The two counties are known for their agriculture and aquaculture production in Virginia. Because of its remote location and separation from other parts of the state, people of the Eastern Shore live, work, recreate, and socialize on their land. For them, the landscapes are not only valuable for their economic and ecologic value, but they are also places of history, emotion, and meaning. When people lose their land to the changing climate and rising sea, they are also losing their culture and identities.

      How do we adapt to the changing environment while maintaining our connection with the land? What kind of new relationship can we form with the landscape? This thesis explores how we live with rising sea levels and severe weather through adaptation and relocation through a vision of the future that imagines humanity’s  position in a changing environment. “Imaginaries have a double function; they are both an achievable aim and a way to achieve this aim.” 

      The purpose of this thesis is to provide a possible outcome of climate change on the Eastern Shore, with the hope that these visions can serve as a reference point to foster connection between disciplines, organizations, and communities. This method of starting with a desirable future and working backward to identify required policies, technologies, actors, and spaces is called “backcasting”. It is a common approach used by many disciplines when dealing with uncertainties (other similar concepts include “sociotechnical imaginaries” in Science, Technology, and Society and “fictional expectations” in Economics). When facing an unfathomable challenge such as climate change, imaginaries is the first step to affect real change.