Coastal cities will copy this

The “What If New York City…” design competition addresses the possible devastating effects of climate change for NYC in the event of a Katrina-style disaster. The competition calls for design ideas to prepare for the crisis, so that a maximum number of people would survive in adequate shelter. Clearly this would be off-grid, at least initially. It is a competition that will surely be repeated in London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo…the list is endless. In the New York competition, the premise is that Hurricane Kirk, a Category 3 storm hits New York and displaces hundreds of thousands of residents. Because of the density of New York City, the traditional solution of trailers doesn’t work.

The competition website will take you to the fictional coastal neighborhood of Prospect Shore (38,000 displaced) after the storm. You meet people living there, see what happens to their homes in the first 200 days.

At that point, the rest is up to you. What is a housing solution that could be used for a year to five years after that? How does it incorporate principles like density, rapid deployment, flexibility, cost, and eco-concepts like re-usability and sustainability?

You must be 18 or older to enter. You may work as an individual or as part of a team. You must register between October 15 and November 23, 2007. Submissions are due by December 14, 2007. Then, in January 2008, finalists will be selected and given $10,000 to develop their ideas, which will be shown off in May.

New York City Mayor Bloomberg, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Architecture for Humanity set up this challenge and in doing so make it utterly clear what kind of devastation would occur. Even if you are not planning to enter the competition, check out the What If New York City… website. It is an interesting place to click around.