When I learned about Boston's comprehsive reclamation history in 11.001 my freshman year, I was SHOCKED. I honestly didn't know you could just "make land" like that. It must be possible though, since it seems like they did a good job of stitching together those 7 islands into the city of Mumbai too.
My initial interest with water architecture was definitely at a smaller scale, revolving around how a household adapts to and benefits from living in a water environment. I think now, probably due in part to our Mumbai site visit, I'm interested in getting a larger perspective.
Mumbai had a fascinating dynamic along its main waterfront, the Back Bay, which is completely artificially constructed a la the Back Bay Reclamation Plan, completed in 1970, though not without a tumultuous history. For a city that has dealt with overcrowing and some of the highest urban densities in the world, I'm curious how and why land reclamation became a technique (whether it was effective or not in Mumbai's case) for diffusing congestion, increasing public amenities and, basically, just having more space in a time when urban populations are relentlessly increasing.
Land reclamation changes the entire nature of a waterfront. It is a completely human construct. It pretends to recreate tidal forces and contential plate movement with a designed boundary from land to water.
The designer/planner for Boston's Faneuil Hall had the notion to leave a hint of its "natural" waterfront -- embedded in the concrete plaza are shells and traces of other ocean debris, a jagged line denotes the original former Boston Harbor.
My current thought is to investigate the conditions, motivations and results of land reclamation projects at various scales in major cities, including Boston, Mumbai, Singapore, Dubai...and definitely others as I find out more. It would be interesting to find out if and why motivations for land reclamation change throughout the development timeline of a city as well.
In some ways, the strategy behind land reclamation is essentially to inhabit water as though it were land. I also interested in exploring the concept of "floating cities" in a sense...a notion that many have attempted to tackle it seems (wired.com, BLDGBLOG). To me, seasteading, as they call it, raises even larger questions.....essentially dealing with redefining not just a boundary condition, but an entire earthscape.
I admit that I'm sort of a skeptic with this type of futuristic theoretical designing...but with the pressure of urban populations exploding in the next 30 years (unfpa.org), is inhabiting the water a feasible, or even desireable, way of living?
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