Water is one of the most foundational components of human civilization, sustaining global trade, food production, and local recreation. The built environment most directly meets water at the coastline, where the risk of erosion and flooding continues to grow. Separately, engineered structures and natural systems, like coral reefs, have long buffered the coast and its inhabitants against natural hazards. Yet both engineered and natural solutions' capacity to protect is diminishing over time.
One approach that integrates multiple, reinforcing functions for coastal protection and ecological restoration is described as an artificial-biological hybrid reef, which integrates engineered substrate with living reef-building organisms. This layered growth process is thought to maintain a reef's protective capacity over time through self-repair, unlike a solely grey engineered solution, which remains fixed at its initial form.
This research was guided by a single, unifying question: How can coastal infrastructure be designed to accommodate continued human occupation of the shoreline while working alongside, rather than against, the natural systems already in place?
I pursued this question of coexistence through on-site visits to selected projects. Each was examined in terms of its materials, geometry, construction methods, and capacity to adapt and scale to other locations over time. These comparisons are compiled with the aim of informing future hybrid reef design and contributing to the broader body of knowledge addressing coastal resiliency.
