Climate change has been increasingly causing global loss of life and property damage as weather
patterns change. Even if greenhouse gas emissions halt tomorrow, the impacts of climate change
will continue into the foreseeable future. One of the recognized impacts of climate change – and
potentially the most dramatic for coastal cities – is sea level rise (SLR). With the projected numbers
of sea level rise, many coastal cities like Banjul (The Gambia), Shanghai, Calcutta, Miami and
Manhattan will be completely submerged in the future.
With climate scientists' best efforts to predict what the future holds in terms of climate change and
sea level rise, there are several limitations and uncertainties inherent in climate models that creates a
challenge to Architects’ ability to design the suitable long-term forms and building structures for the
future.
We now know that with climate change comes rising seas – and that this sea level rise will
dramatically affect coastal cities and their communities. These communities will require resilience
and the right adaptive capacity to ensure of their long-term sustainable existence. Therefore, the
main goal is to generate a feasible solution through an innovative and marginalized building
prototype that replicates and forms a community which is food self-sufficient through the
integration of aquaponics. It is imperative that all the necessary details are derived to be sure the
prototype will indeed be able to float and sustain all the types of loads expected to be on it. It is of
great importance that it also gives its occupants a certain level of decision making in the way they
want their dwellings to look like.
In this proposal, Banjul (a coastal city which is highly threatened by the rising sea levels) is chosen.
Instead of retreating inland and abandoning the infrastructure, or avoiding the construction of new
developments in the city’s most vulnerable areas, we explore how homes, building structures, and
new infrastructure, in general, should respond to sea level rise by integration and incorporation with
the waters. In a system where the water body is seen as an opportunity, the city with its
infrastructure, is transformed to sustainably co-exist with water in new re-inventive ways. Thus,
through the accommodation strategy of adaptation, by the implementation and integration of the
architectural typologies—Open Building and Aquatecture with Aquaponics, results to a flexible
community that is resistant to the effects of sea level rise and be self-sufficient in terms of food
production.
The general outcome of this research doesn’t only transform the city into a system that co-exists
with water and reinvent the coastal architecture, lifestyle, transportation, agriculture and even
ecology, by the evolutionary simulation into a sustainable city, it also comes with the new
perspective through which future research could be picked up from to device new alternatives or
even more sophisticated ideas.

Climate change has been increasingly causing global loss of life and property damage as weather
patterns change. Even if greenhouse gas emissions halt tomorrow, the impacts of climate change
will continue into the foreseeable future. One of the recognized impacts of climate change – and
potentially the most dramatic for coastal cities – is sea level rise (SLR). With the projected numbers
of sea level rise, many coastal cities like Banjul (The Gambia), Shanghai, Calcutta, Miami and
Manhattan will be completely submerged in the future.
With climate scientists' best efforts to predict what the future holds in terms of climate change and
sea level rise, there are several limitations and uncertainties inherent in climate models that creates a
challenge to Architects’ ability to design the suitable long-term forms and building structures for the
future.
We now know that with climate change comes rising seas – and that this sea level rise will
dramatically affect coastal cities and their communities. These communities will require resilience
and the right adaptive capacity to ensure of their long-term sustainable existence. Therefore, the
main goal is to generate a feasible solution through an innovative and marginalized building
prototype that replicates and forms a community which is food self-sufficient through the
integration of aquaponics. It is imperative that all the necessary details are derived to be sure the
prototype will indeed be able to float and sustain all the types of loads expected to be on it. It is of
great importance that it also gives its occupants a certain level of decision making in the way they
want their dwellings to look like.
In this proposal, Banjul (a coastal city which is highly threatened by the rising sea levels) is chosen.
Instead of retreating inland and abandoning the infrastructure, or avoiding the construction of new
developments in the city’s most vulnerable areas, we explore how homes, building structures, and
new infrastructure, in general, should respond to sea level rise by integration and incorporation with
the waters. In a system where the water body is seen as an opportunity, the city with its
infrastructure, is transformed to sustainably co-exist with water in new re-inventive ways. Thus,
through the accommodation strategy of adaptation, by the implementation and integration of the
architectural typologies—Open Building and Aquatecture with Aquaponics, results to a flexible
community that is resistant to the effects of sea level rise and be self-sufficient in terms of food
production.
The general outcome of this research doesn’t only transform the city into a system that co-exists
with water and reinvent the coastal architecture, lifestyle, transportation, agriculture and even
ecology, by the evolutionary simulation into a sustainable city, it also comes with the new
perspective through which future research could be picked up from to device new alternatives or
even more sophisticated ideas.

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Planning, 73(8)
White Gary, (2015), Africa Drawn: One Hundred Cities
Walton, T.L. Jr. (2007). Projected sea level rise in Florida. Ocean Engineering. Doi:10.1016/j.oceaneg.2007.02.003
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The Gambia department of works, construction and infrastructures
Embassy, Royal Netherlands. "Pioneering Water” 2009
Gambia Ports Authority
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NLE Architects