Yuehan Li

Blue Alchemy


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A Sustainable Future for Coastline Retreats

Confronted with the imminent peril of rising sea levels, the regions of Rumney Marsh and contiguous impervious surfaces confront analogous challenges. The prospective extinction of salt marsh habitats and the fructuating decisions surrounding the continuity of labor and infrastructure on extensive terrestrial expanses underscore the erosion of boundaries between aquatic ecosystems and human domains. In the context of the Anthropocene, where humanity is increasingly detached from nature and the once essential productive environments, the need to establish new relationships with multiple species becomes evident. This project envisages the prospective trajectory of Rumney Marsh and the coastal vicinity through the refinement of existing Construction and Demolition (C&D) systems. 

Reusing physical materials derived from the landfill, such as fly ash, and repurposing materials from site retreat demolitions, the endeavor involves their processing to engender innovative structural elements intended for diverse ecological designs. The main objective resides in depicting an unprecedented interface between human entities and aquatic life, concurrently reconceptualizing the biological trajectories within the salt marsh. By deploying a migratory organism network centered around fish, the initiative aspires to effectuate the relocation of marsh habitats to flood-prone areas, thereby actualizing a multi-species symbiotic system.
In the future the landfill will be largely submerged, and most facilities on the North Shore will be submerged under 6ft of water.Between the retreating or retreating urban interface and the recurring tides, the marsh serves as an intermediate interface whose complex ecology and inherent biological dynamics need to be seen and reconnected with humans.
With the material left behind by retreating cities, and the ever-new urban marshes, I hope to use a new coping system/project to connect these discarded materials, the marshes, and the humans around the shoreline. This move will begin in rumney marsh and along the northern shoreline.















Over time a large system of new zones will be formed between the different edges, these special spaces will change over time, bringing the aquatic world step by step into the city.As materials are researched and categorized, the design of the edge integrates materials and the migration paths of aquatic organisms, utilizing different biomaterials in the design of the module.