🌊 SALTY URBANISM:

Designing Resilient Coastal Cities

By Pat Roth

At the recent Southeast Florida Climate Compact, attendees heard an inspiring and thought-provoking presentation on SALTY URBANISM — a design manual addressing sea level rise and climate change in coastal urban areas — by architect and researcher Jeffrey E. Huber, FAIA, ASLA.

Jeffrey Huber is a Professor in the School of Architecture at Florida Atlantic University, where he teaches housing, urban design, and materials and methods of construction. He is also a principal at the internationally recognized firm Brooks + Scarpa and is actively researching sea level rise in South Florida, securing nearly $1 million in grant fundingto advance this work.

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🏙️ A Core Message: Cities Must Be Designed to Flood

One of the most powerful takeaways from Huber’s presentation was a simple but critical idea:
Architecture and infrastructure in coastal cities must be designed to flood — not fight water at all costs.

Well-designed systems should:

• Avoid shifting flood impacts to neighboring areas

• Adapt over time as conditions change

• Be multi-scaled and multidisciplinary, not planned in silos

• Recognize that one size does not fit all

 

📍 Case Study: North Beach Village, Florida

Background
North Beach Village experiences distinct wet and dry seasons and has relatively flat topography that slopes more than 12 feet from the beach to the Intracoastal Waterway. Limited soil capacity to store water required extensive drainage infrastructure, while public demand for development remained strong — creating a need to balance growth, infrastructure protection, and flood risk.

 

📝Planning Approach
Both short- and long-term planning were essential, with infrastructure expected to last 50 years or more. A phased, 10-year initial strategy was developed alongside long-term scenario planning, asking critical questions:

• How much flooding is tolerable?

• How much investment is manageable?

• What solutions are realistic over time?

 

🌿 Key Adaptation Strategies Highlighted

1️⃣ Soft Defense & Green Infrastructure

• Creation of a “green jacket” using living shorelines, breakwaters, and green streets

• Strategic retreat from the most vulnerable shorelines to make room for green infrastructure

• Just 15 feet of marsh can absorb 50% of wave energy and 25% of storm surge

• Green infrastructure also reduces the duration of standing water after storms

2️⃣ Strategic Retreat & Rewilding

• Retreating from the lowest elevations and rewilding beaches and Intracoastal shorelines

• Restoring biodiversity and ecological services by “giving land back to nature”

• Use of Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs) to shift density to higher, safer ground

3️⃣ Radical Land & Building Adaptation

• Reimagining development with amphibious and submerged building typologies

• Integration of floating bio-remediation islands that:

  • Clean polluted water

  • Manage waste

  • Support food and energy production

  • Help deacidify saltwater

 

🌎 Why This Matters

SALTY URBANISM challenges us to rethink how we design, build, and live in coastal cities. Rather than resisting water, these approaches work with natural systems to improve resilience, protect communities, and create healthier, more adaptable urban environments.

This kind of thinking aligns closely with what Residents for Resilience continues to advocate for across South Florida: nature-based, science-driven solutions that prepare us for the future we are already facing.