The blue garden: coastal infrastructure as ecologically enhanced wave-scapes

Abstract

Hard coastal infrastructure such as breakwaters and seawalls are built according to engineering parameters of structural performance and cost efficiency. Especially in urban settings, they conflict with the diverse needs and values of other users and stakeholders, such as sustaining coastal ecosystem biodiversity and providing the public with open, accessible spaces for socialisation and recreation. The presented research explores how the discipline of landscape design can contribute to their evolution. Building on recent precedents in developing multi-functional, ecologically enhanced seawalls, it proposes the concept of the blue garden, and explores two of its key features: bio-engineering the form and materiality of seawalls to enhance their performance as ecosystem service providers; and utilising computational fluid dynamics to poetically shape sea waves as a visual, aural and tactile landscape material to enhance its social and experiential value. It concludes with a pilot study that implements these principles for a specific urban site.