Notes

[1] The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces. The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and unified and specified combatant commands. It prescribes five graduated levels of readiness (or states of alert) for the U.S. military, which increase in severity from DEFCON 5 (least severe) to DEFCON 1 (most severe) to match varying military situations.

[2] Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young, The Rising Sea (Washington, DC: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2009), xi.1 The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces. The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and unified and specified combatant commands. It prescribes five graduated levels of readiness (or states of alert) for the U.S. military, which increase in severity from DEFCON 5 (least severe) to DEFCON 1 (most severe) to match varying military situations.

[3] Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young, “People and the Rising Sea,” in The Rising Sea (Washington, DC: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2009) 132.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Bost, Travis. “The Spectacle of water and machine: The Ideologies At Work In The Bonnet Carre Spillway Openings Of 1937 And 2011” 2012.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Project text from West 8, to be published in upcoming book, Water Index, ed. Seth McDowell. Actar, 2016.

[9] Isaac Cohen, Kate Hayes, and Jorge Sieweke’s “Swamp Thing: Smart Grid, Smarter Water Management in New Orleans, LA,” project description from designers. University of Virginia, 2012.

[10] “Water: Our Thirsty World,” National Geographic (April 2010) 217, no.4: 52.

[11] Ibid, 54.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Moorish, William. “The Urban Spring: Formalizing the Water System of Los Angeles” Modulus. University of Virginia, 1985.

[14] “Sietch Nevada « MATSYS.” MATSYS RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

[15] MoMA and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center collaborated to address one of the most urgent challenges facing the nation’s largest city: sea-level rise resulting from global climate change. “Though the national debate on infrastructure (was at the time) focused on “shovel-ready” projects that would stimulate the economy, the joint effort enabled new research and fresh thinking about the use of New York City’s harbor and coastline.” An architects-in-residence program at P.S.1 (November 16, 2009–January 8, 2010) brought together five interdisciplinary teams to re-envision the coastlines of New York and New Jersey around New York Harbor and to imagine new ways to occupy the harbor itself with adaptive “soft” infrastructures that would be sympathetic to the needs of a sound ecology. These creative solutions were intended to dramatically change residents’ relationship to one of the city’s great open spaces.

[16] Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream was an exploration of new architectural possibilities for cities and suburbs in the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis. During summer 2011, five interdisciplinary teams of architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers, and landscape designers worked in public workshops at MoMA P.S. 1 to envision new housing and transportation infrastructures that could catalyze urban transformation, particularly in the country’s suburbs. Responding to The Buell Hypothesis, a research report prepared by the Buell Center at Columbia University, teams—led by MOS, Visible Weather, Studio Gang, WORKac, and Zago Architecture—focused on a specific location within one of five “megaregions” across the country to come up with inventive solutions for the future of American suburbs. This installation presented the proposals developed during the architects-in-residence program, including a wide array of models, renderings, animations, and analytical materials.