Bamboo as a remedy to rising sea level

15/06/2015. Bartlett School of Architecture
metalocus, LEONOR MARTÍN, IRENE GARCÍA

Once more we share one of the interesting works of final year of the Bartlett School of Architecture. The new graduate Alfred Hope proposes a landscape of Bamboo on the outskirts of the city of Bristol, but it serves as a model for coastlines all around the world, which are threatened by rising sea levels and the consequent loss of land.

'Sea Rise City' by Alfred Hope.

The project proposes a series of floating bamboo rafts that serve as ground that replaces the land lost to sea level rise over the coming centuries. The project is implanted on the edge of the mouth of the Severn River, on the outskirts of Bristol, and has been developed in collaboration with Bristol City Council and the United Nations.

Description of the project by Alfred Hope

Nearly three billion people currently live in low elevation coastal areas around the world who are vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise. Sea Rise City is a partnership between the United Nations and the city of Bristol. The long term project, acts as a model for future urbanism on water by replacing land which is lost to sea level rise by growing a floating bamboo landscape to act as a canvass for urbanism.The construction of the landscape is facilitated by a floating off shore infrastructure, the headquarters of the 18th UN department, the department of Water & Climate Change. The landscape is home to 17 communities, subsidiary branches of the other UN departments which experiment with the many aspects involved with future urbanism on water leading to the generation of knowledge for future generations.

The project started with the brief ‘redefining utopia’ and is based on notion that Utopia and Dystopia are intertwined, with one supporting the other. In the project scenario, the City of Bristol is chosen as the location for the project due to it’s bad history and the role it played in the trans atlantic slave trade, which brought riches and prosperity to the UK and underpinned the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Given the recent apology debate surrounding the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, and Bristol’s refusal to apologise, the city becomes the site for the project in order to repent for its past by establishing new methods to tackle sea level rise as part of UN efforts to establish a better future for everybody.

The project anticipates that the Bristol area will likely experience a sea level rise of 7m by the year 2275. The project, deals with the issue using a method to effectively ‘grow’ new land from bamboo as the sea level gradually rises. This method was inspired by the ancient methods of Chinampa farming used by the Aztecs on lake Texcoco to establish floating agricultural landscape made from organic materials. Eventually the floating landscape consolidated and thickened to form new land.

The focal point of the project is the newly established United Nations department of Water & Climate Change. This new arm of the UN manifests itself as a floating infrastructure located at the current mouth of the river Avon estuary. The infrastructure provides a base for the creation of the surrounding landscape by facilitating the manufacture of new landscape rafts, and by treating organic waste from Bristol. The organic waste process creates compost, which is used to provide nutrients for the growth of the landscape, it also creates biogas, used for energy, and waste water, used for irrigation.

This headquarters comprises the following:

- Several 'land factories’ which process bamboo to create new bamboo rafts, which are then planted with bamboo to provide a further supply of materials, or community units such as accommodation etc.
- An administrative HQ complete with banqueting hall, archives, and food bank.
- A break water harbour wall as storage for biogas and waste water.

The surrounding landscape provides a canvass for United Nations communities, each representing UN departments with vested interests in the future of climate change. The communities are envisaged as self-sufficient bases for the generation and dissemination of knowledge which are much akin to monasteries. These communities play host to visitors and students from around the globe who come to experiment and learn methods such as how to grow food in a salt water environment, before returning home to implement techniques and methods to benefit others.