Dune landscape with sand flats and wetlands. Project Blue Dunes by West 8 and WXY. Visual by Janneke Eggink
Blue Dunes
"The Future of Coastal Protection"

New York, New Jersey, USA
2014

Competition - Rebuild by Design
Project team: West 8 / WXY 
During my employment at West 8 - Role landscape designer
In June 2013, President Barack Obama announced the national competition, Rebuild by Design. Team WXY/West 8 responded with a bold, yet substantiated, approach to coastal protection. 
We asked ourselves: "if we had planned and designed our coasts with the dynamic effects of climate change in mind, would there have been a way to deflect storm-driven surges with a set of barrier islands located offshore?“ The results demonstrated potential for saving lives and billions of dollars across the region. 
Blue Dunes is a research proposal for a string of barrier islands in response to the challenges of regional coastal resiliency in the northeastern United States. 
See the full design booklet online: Blue Dunes
The Blue Dunes project shows barrier islands in front of the coast of New York and New Jersey. Aerial illustration by Janneke Eggink, image courtesy of West8 and WXY.
The resulting proposal to create an offshore barrier island chain is called “The Blue Dunes” - blue indicating their position in the open ocean and dunes for the natural landforms they mimic.
The Blue Dunes project shows barrier islands in front of the coast of New York and New Jersey. Aerial illustration by Janneke Eggink, courtesy of West8 and WXY.
Blue Dunes aims to lower the storm surge on the coast. Therefor the dikes can lower by almost 50 %. Improving quality of live along the coast.
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