Around the world, human settlements are facing increasing repercussions from anthropogenic climate change. Even if we were to imagine that it was possible to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere today, a Herculean task that would require all emissions to cease, global temperatures and sea levels would continue to rise for centuries due to the time scale of climate change.¹ As such, a now common understanding is that “the irresistible momentum of sea level rise will increasingly conflict with human development patterns and plans for the future.” ² The impacts from sea level rise alone include: increased damage from extreme weather, storm surges and floods; destruction of ecosystems and property; species migration and extinction; resource, food and water shortages; violent conflicts and human migration. These impacts will affect hundreds of millions of people globally. With the certainty of these looming threats, but uncertainty about their extent or meaning for how we occupy the planet, the importance of proactively designing for a changing climate becomes heightened (Fig. 1).

To devise solutions to the complex problems coastal regions will be facing as a result of sea level rise, we need to shed our initial instinctual reactions. We must expand the area of inquiry, to expose the true causes, impacts and extents of each problem. We must investigate the tools and resources available for implementation, the regulations that frame the limits of our solutions, and the social and political context and capital that surround the project. 

In the past, architects have embraced the challenge of solving complex problems similar in magnitude to those we are now facing. Some utilitarian, utopian and social architecture, landscapes, and planning during the latter part of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century responded to the challenges presented by the rapidly changing social, technical and political world. Landscape projects such as Fredrick Law Olmsted’s “emerald necklace,” which was constructed in Boston, addressed the need for relief from overcrowding, pollution, and city noise by creating public urban parks. As part of the solution, constructed landscapes, like these reshaped topographies serve to fix a network of drainage and sewage problems further improving the health and resilience of their cities. Modernist social housing and planning by architects such as Le Corbusier, responded to the complexities of changing social and technological norms, economic disparity, pollution, and urban vulnerability to fire and disease. Although the success of these and other projects of the past can be debated, there is no arguing that the minds behind them generally carried a broad sense of ambition and agency.

Contemporary theorists such as Keller Easterling argue that in addition to the common definition of infrastructure, everything from shared standards in construction materials and credit card dimensions, to shared ideas that shape policies, physical space and human interactions are all forms of infrastructure.⁵ Re-examining complex projects of the past such as those of Olmstead and Corbusier with this contemporary definition of infrastructure shows that these were much more than architectural or landscape designs. Their design solutions used organizational infrastructures, standardized construction materials, and social infrastructure to create frameworks flexible enough to address the complexity of the issues they were responding to. 

In today’s context, using this expanded definition of infrastructure allows us to reconsider the extent of the factors influencing our built environment. It allows us to explore the impact that organizational infrastructures have on our designs so that we can influence and propose changes to these infrastructures to assist the production of successful designs. Ultimately, expanding the definition of infrastructure blurs disciplinary lines and allows architects to better utilize their inherent capacity as problem solvers to respond to the complexities of climate change. As suggested by Alejandro Aravena “we should understand that if architecture has a power, it is synthesis, and in this sense we do not have to be afraid to start by designing the question and identifying the variables of the equation.” ⁶

“Polyvalence” is the inherent capacity of an object to be reinterpreted for different uses over time. Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger first introduced this concept to the architectural profession in the 1960s as a criticism of the inherent laissez-faire in the idea of flexibility. In Hertzberger’s words, “although a flexible set-up admittedly adapts itself to each change as it presents itself, it can never be the best and most suitable solution to any one problem.” ⁹ The idea of polyvalence can also be perceived as a response to the egotistical approach of utopian designs, which are typically theoretically strong, but in their specificity turn their backs on the diversity and irrationality of humanity. Hertzberger argues that “just like words and sentences, forms depend on how they are ‘read’ and which images they are able to conjure up for the ‘reader’.” ¹⁰ To be reinterpreted a form requires sufficient defining characteristics, as well as a context suggesting the need for reinterpretation.

The Athenian Agora is one excellent historic example of constructed polyvalent buildings and public space. The Agora has evolved over several thousand years as each new building positioned itself relative to the existing buildings. The colonnades, steps and variety of spaces for circulation and access to buildings have consistently been used as seating, shelter, and meeting places, accommodating the quiet observer and those needing to be the center of attention. The result is a public space that has been continually re-interpreted for civic theatres, markets, special events and circulation (Fig. 3).

“Adaptation” is defined as “a process whereby an organism becomes better suited to its environment.” ¹³ As a process, the timeline for adaptation falls between the glacial multi-generational progress of evolution, and the immediate instinctual reaction to an emergency. Adaptation requires an understanding of the changes to which it must respond. What is also important is that the timeline during which the change will take place is either a significant portion of the lifetime of the organism or potentially, in the case of humans, multigenerational. However, where adaptation to climate change becomes a challenge for the architect is that buildings and in many cases infrastructures are static objects. So the question becomes how can our new buildings and infrastructure be designed and constructed so that they can adapt to our uncertain high-risk future?

As the built environment struggles to keep pace with the rapidly-changing world, Polyvalent Adaptation should be at the forefront of the architectural discourse. Used as a lens, Polyvalent Adaptation presents opportunities for us to create temporally relevant infrastructure that addresses current and future problems while also mitigating risks. However, as pressing as climate change issues are, the current process for developing designs is generally not equipped to produce designs that have the built-in agency or contingency required to address the scale and impacts of climate change. Although some architectural offices have figured out ways around this limitation, for the most part specialized firms develop specific programs and define tight budgets, often with political or economic agendas driving them. Then, based on these programs and budgets, architects compete in order to execute designs in restrictive regulatory and planning frameworks, many of which are decades old and a response to different times. The world is littered with projects that are over budget, behind schedule, and, almost before completion, inadequate for their intended use. This straightjacket of the contemporary design process is reinforced by a lack of continuity and foresight resulting from short political terms and quarterly financial expectations of privatized entities. Architects are caught between the realities of climate change, outmoded disciplinary norms, and the financial and regulatory limitations of neo-liberalism that are driven by economic greed, not social or environmental well-being. To tackle the scale and impact of sea level rise, we need to rethink the foundations of the design process and the organizational infrastructures that define that process.

If we look again to the work of Le Corbusier and Frederick Law Olmstead, we can learn from the context within which their projects were proposed and implemented. Two key elements become apparent. The first is ambitious designers, willing to expand their thinking beyond the confines of their profession and the initial problem; the second is the power and resources to implement radical ideas. These two characteristics are present in many other complex infrastructural projects from our past as well. In Paris, the ambitious plans of Napoleon III, which were amplified through Haussmann’s design, were implemented through the centralized power that Napoleon III wielded. In the Netherlands, the initial ambitious designers of dikes were individual landowners who were drawn to the fertile soils of the area. Over time, the homogeneity of the Dutch society surrounding dikes has provided the power to implement and maintain water management infrastructures at the scale of the entire country. 

Through the lens of Polyvalent Adaptation, the architect is well equipped to develop the required ambitious designs. Architect Reinier De Graaf argues “in as much as we are specialists, we are specialists at everything - which defies the point of being a specialist.” ¹⁵ It could be argued then that architects have value as generalists. We are able to bridge between areas of specialization as well as to clients, the end user, and local communities in order to orchestrate a physically constructed project. If we include architecture and organizational systems in the definition of infrastructure, architects can expand the reach of our complex problem solving to draw on our specialization as generalists. This brings added value to the role of the architect and creates an environment more suited to the creation of the polyvalent designs that will assist in our adaptation to the changing climate.

The second key element is the power and resources to implement a design. The banding together of communities in the devastation following extreme weather events, or due to the increasing threat of similar future events, has the potential to yield the power and resources required for implementation of polyvalent designs of various scales.

The power and resources resulting from extreme events can manifest in many different ways, one of which is rebuilding exactly as before, however, there are other recent examples that suggest other potentials for this power. One example is the enhancement of crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding through improved technology and social networking. These approaches have both been used as early as the eighteenth century,¹⁶ however the internet has provided the platforms and connections required to break down the geographic, logistical and social barriers that have previously limited the potential of the crowd. Both crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding have demonstrated that large scale projects, in ambition and cost, can be pioneered not only by governments or corporations, but also by groups of citizens. Although there are few examples of proactive crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding within the field of architecture, there are many examples of people banding together to support communities or individuals following extreme events.

Another recent example is Rebuild by Design. The United States Department of Housing (HUD) created Rebuild by Design as a response to damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in the north-eastern United States. In its own words, this organization is “reimagining the process by which communities create solutions to complex problems.” ¹⁷ The organization connects designers with locals in the areas affected in order to come up with projects and approaches that address local needs while also improving the ability of the region to be prepared for and to adapt to worsening extreme weather. The typical preparation of a program and budget is removed from the process to let multidisciplinary teams of designers research and develop their own projects that will not only rebuild the region, but will also respond to future extreme weather and the new realities resulting from climate change. The projects typically combine social, ecological, physical and cultural responses through infrastructure. The US$930 million of funding that is set aside for these projects ¹⁸ has been allocated to the projects based on their effectiveness and ingenuity, creating an incentive for better research, community engagement and design.

According to the design documents, “Rebuild by Design occupies a space on the edge of government, philanthropy, academia, design, and community.” ¹⁹ This model is currently being proposed in other areas of the United States and has spawned the one-hundred Resilient Cities organization. In democratic societies, this model has the potential to allow large regional-scale infrastructural projects to move forward since they are rooted in the needs of all levels of society. The results of the Rebuild by Design approach, many of which are about to begin construction, demonstrate the potential of rethinking how our projects are defined, funded and shepherded through the required regulatory processes and how this can increase the likelihood of Polyvalent Adaptation, especially in the wake of, or face of, extreme weather events.

Approximately five thousand years ago, most of the Saharan Desert was green and home to societies that relied on transhumance as a way of life. Since that time the area has slowly transformed into a vast desert as the last water from the ice age evaporated or moved underground, leaving behind depressions with extensive salt deposits and rich soil. An increase in agricultural production and a demand for salt caused the development of trade routes from Timbuktu in the south to the northern coast of Africa, often with a final destination in Europe. ²⁰ Natural oases, “fertile spots in the dessert where water is found,” ²¹ became vital infrastructure in the functioning of these routes. Gradually, continued desertification caused trade routes to become more difficult to navigate as the number of oases dwindled. 

By the twelfth century C.E., the construction of foggaras and saniyas meant that new artificially-created oases, providing reliable sources of water, could be created at more frequent intervals and could therefore stabilize trade routes.²² Saniyas are deep wells from which groundwater is pumped. Although relatively stable, they rely on a single source of water.²³ Foggaras, on the other hand, are a combination of one slightly sloped horizontal tunnel and equally spaced vertical galleries that stretch up to fifteen km [9.3 mi.] into the landscape collecting water from multiple sources. In some cases, foggaras reach groundwater in surrounding hills, although typically they rely on a combination of rainwater infiltration and condensation. Due to daily temperature swings of up to 20°C [68°F], humid daytime air condenses in the cool air of the night and collects on the ground and in the galleries. This process is reversed during the day when warm air is drawn into the cool foggara through the stack effect of the galleries, and condenses ²⁴ (Fig. 6).

Acting as “socio-ecological landscapes,” ²⁹ oases are a combination of organizational and physical infrastructures that unite to provide the micro-climates required to protect humans, food, and water from the harsh desert environment. They have the capacity to provide stability through extreme droughts as their agricultural areas expand and contract in relation to the constant but varying flow from their water sources. Over time oases have been reinterpreted as resource infrastructures and have draw people to them.³⁰ These settlements grew to support and develop cultural spaces, cultural habits and local economies. As our climate continues to change, there is a renewed interest in ancient technologies, design, and constructed ecosystems such as those of oases, that provide the resources and stability required to adapt to living in harsh new environments.

Strengthening an existing network of winter snowmobile trails by constructing a regional network of rest stops, hunting cabins, arctic farms, camp hubs and food storage, Lateral Office’s proposal for an Arctic Food Network (AFN) aims to address social, economic, environmental, political and cultural issues in the territory of Nunavut. Each hub is designed and ideally situated to exploit local ecosystems and ecologies for the harvesting, preparation and storage of food. The hubs combine new technologies such as telecommunication, greenhouses and smoking cabins with expanded traditional models, such as fishing cabins and community freezers, in order to increase the capacity of that region ³⁵ (Fig. 9).

As one of the projects chosen for further development and funding from the Rebuild by Design process, the New Meadowlands project by MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism, ZUS and De Urbanisten is an excellent contemporary example of Polyvalent Adaptation. The Meadowlands site, northwest of Jersey City was selected following a larger regional study that layered social, economic, environmental and infrastructural vulnerabilities. It became evident that the Meadowlands area was one of the most critical assets to the region, yet also one of the most vulnerable areas to future storm water surges and sea level rise.⁴¹ The design team argues that the “federal dollar is best spent when it helps not just flood risk, but rather the combined effects of flooding, head islands, pollution, social vulnerability and vital network protection” ⁴² (Fig. 11).

In its first interpretation, the berm addresses many of the current needs of the area by providing local and regional transportation, protecting the wetland from existing urban and waste contamination, re-establishing protected freshwater wetlands, and creating a network of outdoor public spaces. The second interpretation of the meadowband is as a protective ribbon for the urban areas from future storm surges, wave action and sea level rise. This interpretation also provides room for the “meadowpark,” the natural marshes and meadows in the flood plains, to provide its beneficial daily hydrological functions (Fig. 13). The final interpretation of the infrastructure is as a spine to attract and guide future development in the area. Foundational to this final interpretation is what the design team calls “design integration.” Design integration requires that the meadowband respond not only to existing urban contexts, but that it also provide reinterpretable direction to guide, but not limit, future high density development for the area ⁴⁴ (Fig. 14).