Adaptable Architecture for a Changing Coastal Environment

Abstract

Coastal erosion, population decline, and economic deterioration, in the rural coastal community of Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, are concerns upon which the provincial government is focused. This thesis explores how ideas of permanence, adaptation, and sacrifice can engage the prevailing erosion of both the coastline and community, in terms of the physical cliff face, population, and economy. Articulating methods of responding to the various conditions of erosion enables an evolving and didactic architecture, which can become a catalyst to stimulate the economy and create stability for the town. Strategies of site placement, as well as technologies of geological formation, historic mining practices, and adaptation approaches, explored in this thesis, provide examples of how prototypical architecture and programmatic insertions can create a viable solution to erosion in this coastal town.