Thesis Highlights
Gulf Coast Climate Futures
The Gulf Coast Climate Futures Research Studios are a series of interdisciplinary design research courses that challenge students to reimagine working landscapes in the Gulf Coast region, spanning Houston, Texas to Mobile, Alabama. In the Fall 2024 iteration of the studio, subtitled, “Reclaiming Abundance in Texas’ Golden Triangle” students were tasked with re-imagining legacy energy infrastructures and landscapes in Southeast Texas as sites of ecological regeneration. Focused specifically on the Golden Triangle region (Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange, TX), the studio examined how former oil and gas infrastructures could be adaptively reused to support marginalized communities in adapting to climate change while creating spaces of ecological abundance.
The studio employed a multi-scalar approach, bridging regional, landscape, and architectural scales through speculative design scenarios. Students worked to understand and push beyond existing regional plans, testing the plausibility of post-carbon futures grounded in "alimentary infrastructure" – systemic, infrastructural interventions that that are life-giving in their design.
The semester unfolded through five progressive phases: exploring landscapes through the lens of a singular material objects, analyzing geospatial data and mapping, diagnosing key issues, constructing site-specific understandings of place, and testing design hypotheses. The pedagogical framework emphasized "worlding" – the radical reimagining of world systems that rupture historical patterns of extraction and racialization.
Students collaborated with Community in-Power and Development Association (CIDA), an environmental justice organization in Port Arthur, ensuring projects addressed real community needs. The methodology integrated rigorous research with speculative visioning, requiring students to synthesize complex socio-ecological data into design proposals that were both locally impactful and regionally replicable. A 4-day field trip to sites along the Louisiana-Texas border provided essential on-ground understanding of the study area.
WORK
The Blue New Deal: Adaptation Toward Abundance for the Golden Triangle’s Industrial Landscapes
By Sigurd Peterson and Cole Schwabacher
Healing Ground: Ceramic-Based Remediation as Community Reparation
By Kris Smith and Ben Cornett
Natural Capital: Establishing Sediment as the Currency of Climate Adaptation in Texas’ Golden Triangle
By Cassie Kadish and Ethan Meisler
