Water needs an architectural embrace

摘要

The Van Alen Institute celebrated environmental design at its Spring Books Soiree in New York last month. One of the books was particularly relevant to this issue of The Architectural Review, which is largely-devoted to water: Blue Dunes, by architect Claire Weisz and Jesse Keenan of Harvard GSD. The book was a response to the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy (or Superstorm Sandy as it is sometimes known), and is based on a project that investigated ways of providing offshore coastal protection via artificial 'barrier islands', mitigating the impact of extreme weather events before they hit land.