image from https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/on-the-malecon/
excerpts from Lebbeus Wood’s post: The Malecón, both a lively and forbidding public space—the former because the sea sends waves crashing against a sheer seawall footed on black rocks below, and people come there to walk or sit on the wall to watch and feel and taste the sea; the latter because it is primarily a space for automobiles. It is a bare, inhospitable roadway separating the city and its people from the pleasures of the warm tropical waters. Granted, that there is no natural beach along this stretch and the land itself drops abruptly to some depth beneath the surging water; and also, as a result, that the water is too turbulent for swimming. Still, it seems that something could be done to make the Malecón a more hospitable space next to the sea for the people of the city. When hurricanes move across the island or the sea, the sea- level rises and the waves become larger and more violent, often flooding the Malecón and its neighborhoods. Every fifty years or so, there is a particularly large storm with winds that drive the sea in a massive storm-surge that floods many lower-lying parts of the city, including those such as la Habana Vieja, the old Spanish colonial city, housing poorer people—a situation similar to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans inundated by a storm surge from a fifty-year storm, Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Cuban government has called for engineering proposals to protect against such catastrophic events. However, because of the nation’s depressed economy, the money to pay for solutions on the scale of, say, the Netherlands Delta Works is not available nor likely to be in the near future. Havana remains vulnerable. In spite of the economic barriers to realising at the present time any large-scale projects, new proposals need to be made. One cannot simply shrug at the impossibility and walk away from the problems. Political situations are changing, and with them the prospects for international cooperation in solving Cuba’s urgent human needs, including flood control for Havana.
It has seemed to me that the problem of making public space on The Malecón and the construction of a barrier to destructive storm-surges could be solved by a single project. Constructed on the land instead of in the sea as many proposals have envisioned, it could be a labour-intensive rather than capital-intensive project, requiring a determined commitment not only by the government, but also by the people of the city. The problems to be solved are large and extensive and can only be addressed by large and extensive proposals. Halfway measures and symbolic gestures are worse than inadequate—they waste both resources and the hope of actually improving conditions. The proposal calls for the construction of a terrace along the six kilometres of the Malecón, a type of urban park or abstract beach cantilevered from the Malecón over the sea. Shelter from the sun is built into the layers of each structurally independent terrace segment, which rests on heavy steel hinges such as those used for modern drawbridges. Independent segments can be built one at a time, shaped to the curving line of the roadway; each designed to accommodate differing recreational needs along its six-kilometre extent. The schematic design shown here only begins to suggest the possible variations. When the weather sends a storm surge of water onto the shore, the force of this surge activates a ballast system within the terrace segments and rotates them on their hinges into a near- vertical position, creating a strong, high seawall that holds back the surging water. When the storm passes and the water recedes, the segments rotate back into their original positions. The idea is that the sea itself initiates and provides the energy for operating the system — no added mechanical systems to install and maintain — a sustainable system, in the contemporary sense.
36 on site review 49 :: shorelines
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