miscellaneous
work completed independently unless otherwise noted
new orleans public space project - prediction
fall 2025 / arch 4041
instructors: Sean Fowler,
Iñaki Alday
in collaboration with Hayden Blodgett
New Orleans and its surrounding areas have always been a topic of climate talks. Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005, and many efforts have been made to recover and learn from the tragedy, including enhancing the city's pumping and levee systems.
The Louisiana Coastal Masterplan (LCM), most recently updated in 2023 with a 50-year, $50-billion plan, was also created to address the impacts on the state's coastal communities and natural resources as the state suffers the consequences of climate change. Our research in this studio is established on a similar ideology. It also builds upon research in previous years.
In the Prediction phase, Hayden and I analyzed the climate conditions in the greater New Orleans area - past, present & future. While he focused on the diagrammatic work, I primarily conducted ArcGIS research on urban heat and on sea-level rise/flood risk.
topography - about half of New Orleans is below sea level
hurricanes are getting stronger and more frequent,
and so are other rainfall events.
collected by Hayden Blodgett
10-year flood depth
100-year flood depth
flood depth in 2075, without LCM
flood depth in 2075, with LCM
storm surge risks, cat. 1-5
urban heat map by standard deviation
urban heat map by absolute temperatureurban heat map by Climate Central
While we concluded that urban heat and sea level rise/storm risks both worsen as climate change progresses, we seek to align our research with climate prediction models by different agencies, such as the LCM, NOAA, and Climate Central, but more importantly with different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), which climate scientists use to quantify future carbon emissions and predict climate scenarios.
We picked RCP 1.9, 4.5 & 8.5, which respectively represent the most optimistic, neutral, and the least optimistic climate scenarios. We predicted that, by 2100, the sea level would rise 3.5’ for RCP 1.9, 4’ for RCP 4.5, and 5’ for RCP 8.5.
sea level projection in relation to New Orleans, its levees, and the Mississippi diagrams by 2100, RCP 1.9, 4.5 & 8.5, completed by Hayden Blodgett
visualizing sea level projection by 2100, 3.5’, 4’ & 5’, processed in Photoshop based on information from LCM’s ArcGIS files
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