NOT EMBEDDED TA24-S-O-Pages-copy - Flipbook - Page 56
Littoral Multiplicity
Grace Andrews and Yuan-An Ju, Assoc. AIA
Rice University
“The way it plays between the interface
of land [and] water—the making of land
through the infrastructure—hints at the
complex ecologies of this place and the
fact that any intervention we make as
humans transforms landscapes and
ecologies.”
— Lola Sheppard
The Galveston seawall, which separates and raises
10 miles of the island from the sea, is a concrete
wall supported by timber piles at risk of exposure
and rotting due to erosion. What if littoral protection could happen through fragmentation instead
of with a oxed wall? In this proposal, a multiplicity of smaller, porous walls is used to protect the
beach from erosion. It works with the longshore
current to collect sediment over time and form a
living coastline that absorbs the shocks of storm
surge before they reach the island. Mangroves and
oysters olter the storm drains that release rainwater
into the gulf. The shoreline connects unincorporated green spaces and parks and bridges the education, tourism, and maritime industries.
54 Texas Architect
9/10 2024
