Living Downstream
Team information
Category:
Leisha Dogra
Bachelor
DY Patil Deemed to be University
Tiya Sanghvi
Bachelor
DY Patil Deemed to be a university
Ishita Haria
Bachelor
DY Patil Deemed to be University
Aayushi Gupta
Bachelor
DY Patil Deemed to be University
Swarnim Waingankar
Master
D.Y. Patil University-School of Architecture
Shubhanshi Chakraborty
Bachelor
DY Patil Deemed to be University
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About the team
Living Downstream examines how upstream decisions in the Mississippi Delta, across land use, infrastructure, and resource extraction, reshape environments and lives downstream. Grounded in data-driven research, we combine spatial mapping, hydrological analysis, and field-based environmental data to understand delta systems. Through an architectural lens, we design nature-based, socially just resilience strategies, working toward a future where sustainability is shared, no community is neglected, and nobody is made to live downstream.
Our vision
Our vision for 2120 repositions the Mississippi River Delta not as a fragile edge of the nation, but as a productive, biodiverse, and climate-adaptive heartland. Instead of defending the coast through hard infrastructure alone, we imagine a future where communities, ecosystems, and economies are rebuilt by working with the river’s natural logic- from sediment movement and seasonal flooding, to wetlands, and coastal tides. By 2120, the Delta becomes a living and expanding system again. Sediment diversions allow vertical wetland growth, rebuilding land and strengthening marshes that buffer storm surges. Sponge city zones and controlled flooding landscapes absorb and filter water, reducing risk while restoring ecological function. Mangroves expand northward into saline fringes, stabilising shorelines and protecting inland settlements. This future also supports human prosperity. Instead of displacement, adaptation happens in place through elevated and amphibious housing along bayous, maintaining cultural identity and heritage. Food systems are reimagined through farming with the flow- including saline-tolerant crops, aquaculture, and oyster reef farming in brackish waters. Mobility shifts toward water taxis and low-impact transport routes that align with the Delta’s hydrology. Most importantly, climate adaptation, biodiversity restoration, and social wellbeing are not treated as competing goals. They are interconnected outcomes. The Mississippi River Delta of 2120 becomes a global model for nature-positive development: a place where nature is restored, communities remain rooted, and resilience is achieved through collaboration with natural systems rather than resistance against them.
Our inventory & analysis
The A0 schematic planning map inventories the Mississippi River Delta as a dynamic coastal landscape shaped by water movement, sediment deposition, salinity gradients, and human settlement patterns. Key physical features recorded include open water bodies, marshlands and green zones, barrier islands, existing road networks, and bayou-based settlement corridors. The map also inventories nature-based adaptation opportunities such as sponge landscape zones, mangrove expansion areas, oyster farming zones in brackish waters, and water taxi mobility routes. The analysis interprets these site conditions as both constraints and opportunities for future design. The dominance of water and recurring flooding shifts the planning approach away from rigid flood prevention and toward controlled flooding strategies, where sponge city zones can safely absorb stormwater while improving filtration and reducing flood peaks. Saline, low-energy coastal fringes are identified as ideal transition zones for mangrove migration, strengthening storm surge buffering while restoring biodiversity. The map further analyses the Delta’s working coastal economy, proposing oyster aquaculture as a restoration-based livelihood that also improves water quality. Settlement strategies are analysed through adaptive housing typologies- raised and amphibious structures- allowing communities to remain in place while responding to long-term sea level rise. Overall, the inventory and analysis support a nature-positive framework in which ecological functions and human systems are designed to reinforce each other.