We are living in a post-ecological era in which, nature, as a distinct archetype of the human being no longer exists. An era known as the Anthropocene, in which global warming commonly known as climate change, is for many, the most emblematic crisis. A moment therefore, of personal and global responsibility, in which action is necessary. A time to devise strategic responses, which from the combination of planning and action will enable the development of research, at the same time catalyzing cultural and physical processes aimed at resilience.
In this global context, the thesis questions the global treatment of coasts, its planning, management and design. It defends the necessary adaptation to climate change must come parallel to the radical during of the conceptual frame in which it has been globally developed in the last centuries through planning and projects. This metamorphosis of the coast is reclaimed in the thesis by the elaboration of a set of proposals which confronts what has been carried out until now, the answer to the change of conditions that we hoped, within the uncertain frame of climate change.
It is not the main objective of the thesis to exercise criticism, but it is useful to develop a set of conceptual and design responses from which to reformulate the relationship of the expansion of the human habitat with a dynamic coast and its
inherent hazards related to the uncertain climate change context. This is carried out through a set of representative study cases in which the German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, denominates the metamorphosis of the risk. For him, it is not only about contemplating the negative consequences brought about by the new global economic and ecological conditions, but on the contrary, to take advantage of unexpected, but potentially positive and emancipatory consequences of the catastrophes. This means that we can experience an enlightenment of new orders, structures and relations that Beck encourages us to analyze as if they were the origins of future structures and typologies.
Following this, a deep analysis of the situtation was proposed by the institutions, planners and designers to the floods brought by the Hurricane Katrina at the end of August of 2005 in the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and by the hurricane Sandy at the end of October of 2012 in the coast of New York and New Jersey. From this understanding, the thesis formulates a typological and technological catalogue of strategies with which to approach the metamorphosis of the coast.
A free coast concerning the metaphysical concept of a static nature which must be protected, or that on the contrary can be controlled, which opens the door to the synthetic ecology of the design of resilient coastal landscapes.