Nourishing Captiva

Instructor: Rosetta S. Elkin/ Group Project/
Collaboration with Anna Curtis-Heald, Jenjira Holmes, and Phia Sennett/
Spring Semester, 2019

This studio was examined Captiva Island, which is an island in Lee County, Florida. The place is full of quiet contradictions. Renourishment maintains beach width by manually filling the beach with sand that has been dredged from 8 miles offshore. The sand is then piped to the island, where it is spread and smoothed along the beach to increase width. The Captiva Erosion Prevention District estimates that 900,000 cubic yards will be needed for the approved 2020 renourishment project. This is the equivalent of 45,000 dumpsters full of sand, or 13 and a half Olympic swimming pools. It is roughly enough to fill the entire 5-mile length of the beach at  200’ wide and 1 and a half feet deep.

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The cost of beach renourishment is covered by state and county funding, as well as self taxation of Captiva homeowners. This is the status quo. Roughly every decade, Captivians must decide whether or not to renourish again.

We offer strategies for land building on the bay-side of Captiva, by using sand to support the natural land-ward movement of the barrier formation.Earlier this year Captivans were presented with a single choice. Do they vote for the nourishment of the beach or to proceed without action? A binary decision YES OR NO, for or against. But as designers we like to imagine alternatives. In a context where the beach is invented and dredge is designed, why not imagine another placement strategy that works WITH the movement of the barrier, rather than against it? We envision a political process that inspires the imagination. 

We have selected 3  scenarios that are proposed to augment shifting coastal  function.
More importantly, each design idea supports transgressive migration, the process of landward island migration, a slow, ongoing process that is held back by renourishment.