![Dune landscape with sand flats and wetlands. Project Blue Dunes by West 8 and WXY. Visual by Janneke Eggink](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf.myportfolio.com/2c6c6406-22b9-4d18-beb4-6ce8d91e2ed6/b976afbb-3ded-4605-91b1-66087e8b681e_rw_1920.gif?h=7d4c8b732f688afe2ce9413688b96839)
Blue Dunes
"The Future of Coastal Protection"
New York, New Jersey, USA
2014
Competition - Rebuild by Design
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
![](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf4.myportfolio.com/2c6c6406-22b9-4d18-beb4-6ce8d91e2ed6/fa88a8f4-75e9-49bb-ba13-b4e37247511c_rw_1920.gif?h=ca60bac00bec7454795e0fe53cf3cf3b)
![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.](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf2.myportfolio.com/2c6c6406-22b9-4d18-beb4-6ce8d91e2ed6/35fc0f45-fd6a-42a2-b527-37b0531cdfae_rw_1920.gif?h=8fa5362440b7b5bf494ace8ed3a0e9b2)
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.](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf6.myportfolio.com/2c6c6406-22b9-4d18-beb4-6ce8d91e2ed6/756f8142-1e47-45cd-9589-c5403994863d_rw_1200.gif?h=ccc54bfa9f939d1162d93dc2ecb3eaac)
![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.](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf1.myportfolio.com/2c6c6406-22b9-4d18-beb4-6ce8d91e2ed6/2c1afa4e-3ed2-49ed-bed1-f504359a49bf_rw_1920.gif?h=3031f228944cd62d89e61e24821901f2)
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