Boca Sur Coastal Dune Park: Landscape Design for Tsunami Resilience

Chile is continuously affected by natural disasters. Due to Climate Change, these events are increasing its frequency and intensity. Cities, on the other hand, are expanding its limits and being built, most of the times and without any planning or design, in risk areas making them more vulnerable to these catastrophes. Earthquakes, fires, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are creating a hard tension between the natural and the built environment. 

This project, located in the coastal area of Boca Sur, in San Pedro de la Paz (Concepción), is a high risk scenario for urban development due to its location in front of the sea, the risk of tsunamis, its deteriorated ecosystem and lack of relationship between the city and the coastline. Through an understanding of tsunamis and the case of study, this project purpose is to recognize the problems and critical layers of the site, in order to design strategies to re-configure the current city limits as a resilient and dynamic border landscape that helps mitigate the effects of an extreme event. This proposal restores the dune cord, facilitating the use of its natural contain capacity in order to dissipate the force of the waves. The design establishes also a new relationship between the city and its socio-ecosystem through biological buffers, control volumes, circulations and materials.