Design Speculation
Changing Course Competition: The Giving Delta
Project Goals:
The design competition “Changing Course” chose three multi-disciplinary design teams in a search for a bold, yet implementable, plan of action for addressing the next century on the Louisiana Delta Coast.
The aim was to maintain the navigation corridor that the Lower Mississippi provides to the nation while simultaneously providing for human settlement and sustained ecosystem function.
Our team’s proposal suggests a radical retooling of the management of the Mississippi River as the primary decision driver, resulting in a reorganization of ecosystem services, communities, and economic systems. Six different design objectives were determined for our proposal:
1. Empower the River to nourish the human, economic, and ecological systems that depend on the River as a shared resource
2. Build and sustain wetlands to mitigate the effects of climate change and subsidence and to slow the inevitable marine transgression of the Delta
3. Strengthen the Living Culture of Coastal Louisiana to remain and to thrive
4. Secure the economic indispensability of the working coast, which is indispensable for the nation
5. Integrate Investments in every dollar spent to yield multiple benefits for cultural, infrastructural, economic, and ecological systems
6. Embrace change as an underlying condition and benefit of living in the delta
Project Team:
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PROJECT LEADERS – TEAM UNITS
- Moffat & Nichol
- West 8
- LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio
- Deltares
- RAND
- Ioannis Georgiou
- Headland & Associates
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PROJECT LEADERS – CSS TEAM
- Jeff Carney Former Director, Coastal Sustainability Studio
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Robert Twilley, PhD
Chairman of the Board & Interim CSS Executive Director
Executive Director, Louisiana Sea Grant
Professor, LSU College of the Coast & Environment
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PROJECT TEAM
- Stephen Barnes Director, Division of Economic Development
- Rex Caffey Professor of Agricultural Economics + Agribusiness + Director of Marine Extension, Louisiana Sea Grant
- Forbes Lipschitz Professor of Landscape Architecture
- Ursula Emery McClure Professor of Architecture
- Kenny Rose Chair + Professor of Oceanography + Coastal Sciences
- Jori Erdman, AIA, LEED AP
- Keith A Maung-Douglass
- Leanna Heffner
- Elizabeth Williams Adjunct Professor of Architecture, Louisiana State University
- Patrick Michaels
- Emily Powell
- Jim Wilkins Louisiana Sea Grant Legal Program
- Elliot Manuel
- Lydia Gikas
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PARTNERS + SPONSORS
- Changing Course