this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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Solarpunk Urbanism

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A community to discuss solarpunk and other new and alternative urbanisms that seek to break away from our currently ecologically destructive urbanisms.

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Swamp City Brainstorm (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi! I'm hoping to hear people's thoughts on what my city, New Orleans, would look like in a perfect solarpunk world.

Most solarpunk art (which I love to see!) Seems to be praire/plains or forest inspired, and definitely one of the issues we have that I want to avoid is people bring environmental and ecological policies and thoughts from those two biomes to other ones (because they're seen as kind of default).

So, New Orleans! Lots of interesting challenges to address, including:

-tornados (so we need safe rooms and to withstand them

-hurricanes (there's probably no way to withstand these, instead maybe something that's kind of designed to be refixed once a year, since that's what happens anyways)

-flooding, both hurricane-associated and flash-flooding throughout the year (definitely no basements, honestly maybe no first or second floors either).

-extreme heat (feels-like gets to 120F/50C at least a couple days a year)

-extreme cold (not nearly as bad as the heat, but can be brutal enough that they turn schools into extra shelter for our unhoused for about a week each year)

-end of the river (we're at the end of the Mississippi, so we're definitely more silt than soil)

-swamp (New Orleans is sinking, our ground isn't particularly stable)

-agriculture (I'm really not sure farming is a great idea. It's hard to find local crops that grow in the wetlands--even lists of indigenous foodways focus more on upstate, where traditional planting would work. Can we farm in the wetlands without turning it into a farm?)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Things that I've been thinking about, or were mentioned on my reddit post:

  1. If the homes are built to be easily repaired after hurricanes, they'd be designed to be hurt by them in a certain way. I'm thinking about how cars are designed to crash a certain way. Designed with specific weak points that could be easily fixed, maybe even deliberately biodegradable if it's only gonna last for a year anyways.
  2. If we do that, than the city would definitely have to be more evacuation-focus than hunker-down-focused during major storms. That amount of mass transport wouldn't be easy.
  3. Rural houses in the local fishing villages are on stilts! The first storey is usually around the third storey. It looks super cool, but would probably be filed under disability-hostile. Not sure how to address that in a way that isn't immediately self-defeating, I feel like we definitely don't want our elevators to flood.
  4. I know we have swampy plantswe could be eating! Where are they! I wanna eat them!
  5. Offshore windturbines, both for energy creation and as a windbreak/tidestop
  6. Should it be a a water city? Someone brought up Venice, but I bet it'd look more like the canal cities in Southeast Asia. But then how do we do sewage? And I do wanna preserve Mardi Gras, and I really do think we need some streets for that. I'd probably still rank it above sponge-city, I don't think our sponge would win
  7. Thinking about houseboats and bridges, especially for 'residential city areas'. I'm imagining like those treehouse cities with rope bridges, but also with houseboats!
  8. For high-density living, maybe tall buildings with just an empty bottom three floors? I know concrete isn't ideal, but I'm picturing something like a highschool gym. Just a big empty room. With concrete and high ceilings, it'd stay cool in the summer without needing AC (especially with few windows--I know a lot of solarpunk art loves windows but I think that's for more temperate zones). They could be third spaces, maybe even like an indoor skate park!
  9. In addition to fewer windows than people often think, I definitely wanna bring back awnings over windows. Curtains offer privacy, but window-awnings are much better at blocking sun and heat. They're kinda out of fashion, but I want to bring them back.
  10. I wonder if there's a good way to plan the highgrounds and lowgrounds--maybe high density housing on the highgrounds, and lowdensity houseboats and swampcrops on the lowgrounds? And let them remain flooded?
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Welcome to the instance! I'm very glad you brought this over here! I'm really hoping to run some of these ideas past folks who know more than I do! I'm thinking about doing some art if I can be sure the details are correct enough.

There's some redundancy with your summary but I thought I'd copy my comment over just in case:

"I really like figuring out scenes/aspects of solarpunk that don't normally make it into the visual art, so I'm glad you're thinking about this and starting a discussion!

Some cities are going all in on 'sponge city' water management techniques, but as far as I know, they're above sea level, often with depleted aquifers under them waiting to be refilled. I have no idea if any of those practices are applicable in New Orleans.

It may be that some areas just aren't practical locations for permanent human settlements, or that they become less-so with worsening weather, and that may be something people will need to make decisions on in the future - at what point is rebuilding just throwing good resources after bad? But there's a tremendous amount of history and culture in these places that absolutely should be preserved, so I'd love to see city designs that can accomplish that.

I've never been to New Orleans but I've seen those stilt houses in other areas in the American south and I think the designs are really cool (concrete reliance aside, but geopolymers may offer an alternative there?). They at least show a recognition that this space is routinely underwater and a willingness to adapt which I think fits a solarpunk ethos.

Rebuilding city structures in a similar way, on stilts or with open bottom floors, could provide some really cool opportunities for common spaces/third places whenever they're dry. Depending on how high the buildings need to be, you could have a decent amount of headroom, room enough for parks, playgrounds, skate parks, parkour courses, anything that can be submerged and washed clean or stowed in the preparations for a storm. It might sound like they'd be dark and grungy but I think they could be really nice, sheltered from overhead sun, with room for a breeze to blow through.

For buildings of extreme historical value, it might be possible to lift some onto raised platforms preemptively rather than wait for rebuilding. I know people move important buildings sometimes so that seems within the scope of human accomplishment.

(Though I'm from a place where our ground is very stable and features a lot of ledge - I have no idea what the ground is like in your area or what it takes to build structures that won't shift, especially once partially submerged (and the ground thoroughly soaked). These ideas might make for cool art/fiction but be completely impractical, I assume folks down there have been thinking about these problems for much longer than I have.)

Another solarpunk option might be accepting a certain amount of encroachment by the water, and switching to canals, ropeways, raised walkways, etc for getting around. This probably still assumes buildings will raised, which still requires a fair amount of changes to the area.

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with.

Edit to add my SO's suggestion: city of houseboats/rafts/riverboats. Or maybe a mix of that, the encroachment/canals, and the raised buildings?"

Now that I've been thinking more on it, I have a few more thoughts:

Solar daylighting rigs (the fiberoptic type) could really help with the quality of the under-building spaces. That could be nice for sports areas, market places, etc.

If the sewage system descends from the building and slopes back towards higher ground or wherever they put the water treatment site, it could end up overhead for those low spaces, so we might want a double layer system or something? Composting (maybe even localized anerobic composting/biogas generation?) would be another option I suppose.

I brought this question up on the Fully Automated TTRPG discord and cromlygames suggested a public transit fleet which is built to be amphibious so it can help with mass evacuations in worst case scenarios. His design ideas was "Basically those ducktour buses (former America in Vietnam war amphibious APC), scaled up to London double decker bus. Door height set to match platform height for tram platforms. Assumes roads not blocked with debris or abandoned cars." He assures me the double decker bus design is surprisingly bottom-heavy and tip proof though I think some stabilizing pontoons that swing down might be neat.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

(1) Hi!! Thanks for the rec and for playing imagine with me, I love thinking about this with people (2) MAJOR shoutout to cromylgames' thoughts! I forgot, but we actually invented those boats! They were swamp boats first, and the WWII ones were designed and manufactured here, and we actually have the National WWII Museum (a very rare thing, to have a National Museum outside of DC) because of it! They're so well suited to the area, I can't believe I forgot about them (3) And likewise, I can't believe I forgot about the Cajun Navy! When the government absolutely failed during Katrina, a bunch of volunteers with boats came into city (someone illegally lol) to pick people up and evacuate them.

We never do them as doubledeckers, but since this would largely come into play right before and after the hurricanes, not during them, it probably would be fine!!!

Oh this is so cool, thank you!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Crom banged out a quick 3d model of his Amphibi_bus idea: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6744397

I had no idea that New Orleans was the origin of those amphibious vehicles, (or that you have a National WW2 museum) that's so cool!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

thats SO COOL pls tell him thank you!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago
  1. Okay now I'm thinking of like Star Wars-style floating cities. Like Cloud City. But obviously floating on water, not air. Might not be super wind resistant, but if it could just float over flooding...But maybe that wouldn't be the most pleasant to be inside the house when that happens. Or maybe it'd be super fun?
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A lot of the architecture from the French Quarter has some solar punk principles, like design features which cool on the summer and warm in the winter. I would expect more of the city to look like that, just at greater densities.

The city right now is sprawled out, so I would expect a solar punk version to correct this by building up instead of out. The Crescent City would retake its shape as the lower lying inlands go back to nature. Some islands of development may be maintained, possibly on roads that can become floating bridges in a storm. Likely, the foundations of buildings would be deep piles with a built-in option to jack in case of regional settlement.

The region is going to go for aquaculture over agriculture. The region is home to several brackish water species including crawdads and catfish. I expect planting of mongroves to try to expand the local fisheries and provide hurricane protection.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The city right now is sprawled out, so I would expect a solar punk version to correct this by building up instead of out.

You're definitely right! I wonder how far up we can safely go--we have some tall buildings but they sure take a beating

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I expect that the buildings would be built about 5 stories tall with no basement. The use of wide galleries would be prevalent, providing arcaded sidewalk space to protect pedestrians from the sun and rain.

In some areas prone to flooding, the ground floor would be designed to flood. The floor would be cement or tile and the walls would be concrete or masonry. Some districts may choose to do what Morristown, TN did and have a public second floor above the worst flood elevations. Bridges would cross the streets, supported by thicker gallery columns. Parade routes may put these bridges on the third floor, providing more access and bar space.Restaurants would have the kitchen and the permanent bar on the second floor while the ground floor had more seating and removable fixtures.

The buildings would be designed to survive a hurricane far beyond current design loads to ensure the city isn't destroyed as it was after Katrina. Solar panels on roofs would supply power while buildings would have temporary storage tanks for water and sewage until flood water receded.