COASTALSTUDIO:
CO-CREATING CLIMATE-RESILIENT CITIES.
Coastalstudio is part of the Smart Coast Initiative at the University of Texas at Arlington, with an interdisciplinary focus merging architecture, engineering, and the social sciences.
It operates as a design-research platform that explores the evolving conditions of coastal territories, particularly the US Gulf Coast, where the spatial forces of water and oil shape how cities are built, inhabited, and designed.
This is a region where human settlement is not simply placed within the landscape but embedded in a dynamic matrix of environmental forces, industrial infrastructures, and socio-political histories. The coastline is not a fixed edge but a shifting field of negotiation, where extractive economies, climatic instability, and logistical operations converge. Coastalstudio approaches architecture as a relational practice within a transscalar framework, capable of revealing and transforming the deeper structures that govern spatial transformation.
We offer a sequence of design studios alongside the seminar Territorial Strategies, which examines the logistics landscape and how macro-level drivers inform spatial transformation across scales. From the urban to the architectural, the work explores how flows of water, energy, food, and mobility shape local geographies. The curriculum aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the AIA Framework for Design Excellence, grounding each project in global aims and disciplinary responsibility.
At the core of Coastalstudio is the integration of human and artificial intelligence through participatory design, smart tools, and sensor networks. Students engage with real-time data, spatial modeling, and predictive analytics to support climate communication, visualize hazards, and identify community assets and challenges. These tools are applied within a holistic and circular design approach, allowing architecture to co-create strategies rooted in environmental and lived experience.
Coastalstudio works through collaboration, not prescription. Students partner with coastal communities, agencies, and local experts to develop adaptive responses grounded in dialogue and situated knowledge. What emerges is not a final outcome, but the next step in a continued dialogue on how co-develop spatial strategies and pathways to action.
The Smart Coast Initiative
as participatory platform.
The Smart Coast Initiative is a collaborative effort at the University of Texas at Arlington that bridges engineering, architecture, planning, and public policy to address the challenges of coastal resilience in a changing climate.
It connects researchers, students, and communities along the US Gulf Coast to co-develop adaptive solutions that respond to environmental risks, infrastructural vulnerabilities, and socio-ecological dynamics. Grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration and public engagement, the initiative integrates community workshops, applied research, and innovative design to strengthen the relationship between people, place, and the coastal environment.
[Urban] Climate Conditions:
Coastal Territories.
Climate sets the premise for the city. Contextual conditions form and inform the natural, cultural, and built environment over time.
Along the US Gulf Coast, the rhythms of tidal flows, hurricanes, and saltwater intrusion intersect with a legacy of industrial development and oil-based economies. Coastal settlements have evolved in response to both natural systems and extractive infrastructures. As sea levels rise, storms intensify, and weather patterns become more volatile, the city is no longer situated beside nature but embedded within a dynamic climate system shaped by both ecological processes and human intervention. This condition demands adaptive thinking, resilient design, and a renewed understanding of the relationship between environmental forces, urban form, and the transition toward post-oil environments.