Detail of “The Omega Chain,” a finalist selected in the infrastructure category.
Credit: Howard & Cavaluzzi Architects Int. LLC.

In one vision of Boston, a network of canals fills and empties with tides and storm surges. Water is drawn through sluices with embedded, hydroelectric turbines, generating power.

In another, an aquatic park snakes around an urban island fortified with terraced steps that keep the ocean in sight but out of reach.

These are two of the nine finalists in Living With Water, a competition to redesign Boston for the year 2100, with the assumption that sea levels are 5 feet higher than today. For many coast-dwellers, that prospect is an existential threat so serious that it’s better not to think of it at all.

Collectively, the ideas from Living With Water try to make a counterpoint: That realism and optimism, when it comes to sea level rise, are not incompatible. On the one hand, the water is rising. On the […]