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Fabricating the Delta

completed
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Project Goals:

Fabricating the Delta introduced digital fabrication as an act of making, analyzing, and positioning design in relation to coastal restoration. The final product was a full-scale kiosk that presents the relationships between physical models, static images, text, projected images, maps and animations, interactive screen content.

Project Team:
  • INSTRUCTOR
    • Shelby Doyle
  • PROJECT ADVISORS
    • Robert Twilley, PhD Chairman of the Board & Interim CSS Executive Director
      Executive Director, Louisiana Sea Grant
      Professor, LSU College of the Coast & Environment
    • Leanna Heffner
  • STUDENTS
    • Kathleen Autilio
    • James Babin
    • Kayla Bosarge
    • Kelli Cunningham
    • Travis Dickerson
    • Cody Drago
    • Andrea Hendrickson
    • Ethan Jordan
    • Yao Liu
    • Sara Loquist
    • Alexis Malone
    • Ruoyi Peng
    • Jennifer Price
    • Landon Pugh
    • Cole Rhodes
    • Karl Schmidt
    • Ryan Zeringue
  • PARTNERS + SPONSORS
    • Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority
    • River Model Exhibition Project

In 1942 the US Army Corps of Engineers constructed a river diversion to protect Morgan City from the Atchafalaya River. Simultaneously, the diversion directed water and sediment to the Wax Lake resulting in measurable (wet)land building during the last 70 years. The Wax Lake Delta provides valuable insight into the ecological processes of coastal restoration.

Fabricating the Delta was a graduate level Architecture and Landscape Architecture research seminar at the LSU College of Art + Design and was taught in collaboration with the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio, and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, a Louisiana government agency. This partnership bridged research, practice, and pedagogy through funded applied design research. Fabricating the Delta produced explanatory interactive models of the Wax Lake Delta, a unique area of active (wet)land building.

Direct + Broader Impacts:
Resulting coursework informed the ongoing Design Development Phase of the Center for River Studies, a CSS designed project and a flagship building on the Baton Rouge Water Campus that houses a ten thousand square foot physical model of the Lower Mississippi River Basin engineered to test sediment flows, distribution, and land building.

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