Today F+ is showcasing Andrew Thomas’s Thesis project ‘Postcard from the Future’ from the Manchester School of Architecture.  The project identifies the issues of coastal areas becoming endangered by rising sea levels and their effects on the edge land environments.  Andrew approach in itself interesting, as he approached the design with the military strategy of attack, retreat and defend. His Proposal is to create a soft edge condition that adapts to the rising and falling sea level.  Check it out after the jump!

SCHOOL: Manchester School of Architecture
PROFESSORS: Rick Dargavel and Amy Hanley
STUDENTS: 
COURSE: BArch Year 6

“Postcards from the Future is a thesis project that explores strategies to combat rising sea levels and their effect on edgeland environments.

The thesis aims to achieve a heterotopian solution to the future global crisis of rising sea levels. Through extensive research it is apparent that a  multi-disciplined strategy must be devised in order to be successful. This strategy was derived from the military terms ‘attack’, ‘retreat’ and ‘defend’ and utilised a sequential test to decipher which approach best suited each individual case.

Focusing on ‘attack’, a prototype structure was created within the intertidal mudflats of the Thames Estuary and focused on time in both a cyclical (daily tidal movement) and linear (100 year sea level rise) manner. In order to survive the environment, the proposed structure is able to float allowing it to rise and fall with the tide and float permanently in the future.

The constantly changing land edge was mirrored within the language of the structure by creating open spaces that blurred the boundaries between the differing programmes and between inside/outside. From the macro to the micro, the proposal expresses how mechanism and material parts collaborate to augment residual edgelands into intimate spaces – altering the way such environments are perceived.”

- Andrew Thomas

F+ Orginal Submission by