Tatiène Guia Digital Portfolio

Reconnecting

Instructed by Jessica Guinto of SCAPE, this 2022 studio work explored current and future coastline conditions in New Jersey. Along with Diana Boric and Meg Schneid, our team to analyzed the spatial relationship of energy, shoreline infrastructure, and time. Drawing on that original framework of changing infrastructure through time, Diana and I focused on a site within Sandy Hook, specifically the sand spit that connects the vegetated zone of Sandy Hook with the rest of New Jersey’s barrier islands. We created a design that combines power generation with wave energy mitigation and long-term sand deposition strategies, to stabilize this unstable and constantly shifting stretch of sand and road infrastructure.

Upper New Jersey
Upper New Jersey
Mid New Jersey
Lower New Jersey

Our base maps explored energy and coastal structures at various points along the New Jersey shoreline.

Greenville Yard – TN Guia
Nike Missile Launch Site – Diana Boric
Beach Haven, LBI – Meg Schneid

In three locations, one from each base map area, we looked more closely at how energy and infrastructure changed through time.

The design intervention in Sandy Hook uses 3 overall strategies to combat tidal drift in the barrier island: vegetation stabilization, sand deposition, and wave disruption. Research on natural dune systems shows that a healthy dune ecology stabilizes the movement of dunes, and the core vegetation zones of Sandy Hook reflected that in having the least historic shoreline shift in the island. The location of our design is both the least vegetated and the most mobile stretch of the island, making it a prime candidate for vegetation stabilization. Currently, the existing access road through this particular stretch is marked by high dunes on either side of the road, demonstrating that the dune system is artificially interrupted continually by human intervention.

Sandy Hook is located a the confluence of opposing long shore flows, creating the “hook”appearance. These strong tides also mean that the barrier islands naturally shift greatly over time, despite human intervention to counteract the drift. Today’s Sandy Hook is connected to the barrier islands through a significantly thinner strand than what existed in the 1700s, before road infrastructure was added to Sandy Hook.

Our second and third strategies drew on international case studies: the Sand Motor project in Holland and the Sihwa Lake Power Station in South Korea. The Sand Motor relies on mass sand deposition and the continued forces of nature to spread sand along an under-sedimented beach to revitalize the recreational beaches downstream from the initial deposition site. The power station in Korea is an early example of large-scale use of tidal power generation, a new form of renewable hydroelectric power that uses the energy of long shore tides rather than the linear flow of a dammed river. In practice, a tidal generator only requires an enclosed region of water that has strong tidal flow and nearby transformers to send the power to, which we artificially created in our design by enclosing a stretch of beach. Using a small model (at the bottom of the following board), we tested various lagoon shapes and sand deposition formations along the spit to maximize sand spread along the Atlantic edge of Sandy Hook.

Our design places a tidal lagoon and a sand engine in parallel to the shoreline and long shore flow, which both disrupt and redirect the tides further north while seeding new sand deposits to the Atlantic edge. The tidal lagoon is situated along a now buried seawall and jetty system installed on the site in the late 1900s, using two jetties as the anchor points for the rest of the seawall and relying on the underlying seawall in the sand as the final line of defense against potential erosion.
The lagoon meets the sand in a series of overlook towers, that would be open to the public year-round. They meet the height of the redesigned access road to Sandy Hook, which would be raised 30 feet to create new viewsheds to New York City as well as the New Jersey mainland. This raised road allows sand dune ecology to migrate south, as the road would no longer be embedded in the sand and therefore allow the dunes to reach a more natural healthy state 20-30ft higher than they are currently permitted to rise.
Over time, these the tidal lagoon and sand engine would allow enough time and sediment buildup that the dune ecology in the northern parts of Sandy Hook would be able to migrate into this unstable sand spit, stabilizing the infrastructure reliant on this sand spit for access to the island core. This more remote section of Sandy Hook would also allow for a less disturbed ecology to recolonize, connecting with re-greening efforts elsewhere in the greater Hudson Bay area.

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