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I landed this great internship last June. My official start date was July 3, same as my dad’s official start date at his new company, and the day before July 4th, therefore an easy one to remember. I didn’t know who this company was; they’re not some big-name prestigious landscape architecture or engineering firm but rather, a landscaping company with offices throughout the southeast, up through North Carolina. I was hired in the Orlando office, and I made it clear from that start that I’d be commuting every. single. week… to Miami for classes.

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I write this now as I’m on my way out, after training my replacement for a month or so now. I’ll board a one-way flight to Europe next week with no precise plan around returning. They know this, and they’re by all means willing to take me back upon my return, but they don’t know what exactly I’m going to Europe for, because I wasn’t ready to tell many people just yet. I mean I feel like a crazy person, or at least I imagine they’d perceive me as such, as I go off to a web development bootcamp in Paris, intent on an entire career change, after just finishing my master’s program in landscape architecture and environmental and urban design.

I learned after three years in grad school, two official internships, and some on-the-side gardening and design projects that this is not what I want to do with my life. However, I’ll delve more into that later, and focus right now on the highlights of this internship.

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I was the only designer on staff, and the only one they’d ever had on staff. I was kind of the guinea pig, they were trying out this new intern thing. I’d say I had a lot of autonomy, as there wasn’t really anyone to train me (not as a designer at least – but rather in areas of horticulture and landscape management) and they weren’t too concerned with micro-managing nor monitoring my every move. I had access to keys to company trucks if I needed to make a site visit, snap some photos and take measurements. I learned how they wanted their proposals done, and I was in charge of writing up the estimates for my projects. I sat in on interviews and disputes, because the bosses don’t speak Spanish and often the employees don’t speak English – whereas I speak both. Sometimes I arrived at 6 a.m. with the crews, to drive with the guys to a project site and show them precisely how I had envisioned its layout.

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They even allowed me to work remotely from time to time – a huge perk as I was spending half the week in Miami, sometimes with enough downtime to squeeze in a few bid proposals. One time my car nearly broke down early on a Friday morning while driving back up, but I made the best of the situation and worked from a cafe in downtown Vero Beach while my car got fixed at the nearby Firestone.

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Design projects were mostly small jobs – a parking lot island here, some new plantings around the neighborhood entrance sign there. Others were slightly larger – fresh new ideas for the neighborhood park, or the mile stretch of sidewalk outside of the homeowner’s association. My designs became much simpler as the months went by, in part because these fancy neighborhoods had strict rules about what could be implemented, and also because these landscape maintenance experts had their own insights as to how certain plantings will perform in certain areas. I saw quite a range of scenarios, and overall had a great learning experience.

The challenge: design for resiliency, in phases, for the next 50 to 100 years. Miami will be one of the first cities severely affected by sea level rise and it’s time to take action.

The overall master plan for 100 years into the future includes regenerative gathering places such as solar parks and greenhouse parks. The wetland park will be home to educational centers, sky bridges, water recreation, and lots of biodiversity. Communities will reuse waste products like compost and biogas to feed their gardens and power their homes. Miami Beach as we know it will be under water, so life will be lived both on rooftops and in adaptation with the water. Rooftops will house gardens, displaced sport fields, solar energy production, and more.

To our surprise, this became a group project. We did not have the luxury of choosing our groups, nor the site for that matter.

We already had our thesis topics planned out, thoroughly researched the semester prior. My thesis would revolve around regenerative agriculture, except it had to apply to the urban landscape. So my research went into regenerative cities, whatever this means. I would make it mean something and apply it to my site, because there’s opportunity everywhere.

The assigned site was on Miami Beach, beween 72nd and 73rd avenues, stretching from the ocean to the waterway and including the surrounding blocks on the north and south end.

The way things played out: I had a vision and the other two did not. The assigned site was going to incorporate permaculture principles and a transition to regenerative living. We had only a few weeks to pull this thing together. I did the delegating and created the diagrams to demonstrate my 50- to 100-year vision for a regenerative Miami Beach. Francesca did most of the renderings and Tim did the socio-economic research.

We analyzed the land uses on site, which were mostly public parks surrounded by residential zones.

Further analysis revealed that our site was topographically one of the lowest on the already-low barrier island. Only a couple feet of porous limestone sits between the urban fabric and the water table beneath.

We brainstorm the meanings of resiliency (the ability to bounce back once disaster strikes) and the path to get there. There are many. And fighting the weather or attempting to keep the water out are not realistic solutions.

Our project focuses on decentralization and self sufficiency as key in our path to resiliency. Currently water and power to the island come from plants far off on the other side of the city. When disaster strikes it will not be wise to rely on these faraway yet essential resources. Additionally, waste is shipped to an island a few miles away. Resiliency will mean reusing and regenerating our resources locally.

Big changes are happening in the next 50 to 100 years and the project happens in phases. The roadways will eventually become waterways. The buildings and city blocks will become self sufficient, catching their own water, generating their own energy, and sharing the abundance from their own urban farming initiatives. Residents must gradually become accustomed to the lifestyle shift required to keep Miami Beach alive. Perceptions of what’s “normal” must be altered and those who are on board will have a productive role to play in a regenerative future.

Phase one starts immediately, and it’s about creating awareness. People will be hesitant to change if they don’t understand the why.

This is where the artists come in. Existing parking lots and underutilized spaces will become “farm parks” and “solar parks” and artists will come up with creative and aesthetically interesting ways to grow food, catch water, and generate energy.

They will also serve as recreational and gathering spaces, as vehicular traffic is gradually phased away from the island and parking lots are no longer needed.

Building retrofitting will begin in phase one. Individual building will have the capacity to catch water and sunlight, convert sunlight and biogas to energy, and produce food on rooftops.

Phases two and three will involve a more community-wide network of rainwater catchment and recirculation, energy capture and storage, food production and distribution, and shared gathering spaces. This way if one building’s infrastructure fails, it has a community to rely on. With water rising and roadways becoming canals, city blocks become more like islands. Resilient islands will have a strong sense of community and self-sustaining systems in place.

Phase one is all about adaptation. Roadways will be narrowed to make space for swales, and new modes of transportation will be encouraged.

• Adapt to vehicle restrictions
• Introduce innovative urban farming initiatives
• More mangroves

Phase 2 (somewhere in between)

• Densify. Integrate.
• Add more mangroves

Phase 3 (a regenerative self-sustaining system of interconnected ecological systems)

• Food production & distribution
• Water catchment & reuse independent of municipal sources
• Waste as opportunity
• Flourishing mangrove forests

With salty waters rising and intruding into the freshwater aquifer, we would have to get creative if we wanted our own supply of fresh water. We would have to catch it from the sky and store it somewhere, so we decide to utilize materials already on the island, and build upward.

And that’s a wrap. Now we celebrate the end of three grueling years.

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CONGRATULATIONS LAEUD GRADS!! • Thank you to all family and friends for attending our celebratory reception and supporting the 2018 graduating class. See you at commencement! | View pictures from event on our Facebook page #fiulandscape #landscapearchitecture #fiugrad #graduates🎓 #classof2018 #laeud #fiu #landscape #masters

A post shared by FIU LA + EUD (@fiulandscape) on Apr 24, 2018 at 7:48am PDT

This was a group project involving 4 architecture and 2 landscape architecture students. The “fear of being boring” was the opinion of one of our critics, a professor of architecture, referring to the massive and nonsensically shaped structures onsite.

The project takes place on the Miami River, where currently there stands an elderly community. Prime real estate with plenty of open space onsite, city officials are in cahoots over how to (re)utilize this space. This semester, 7 groups of us put together our proposals.

Initial onsite observations:

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Main issues with the existing site were that it lacks any connectivity with the surrounding communities and in no way takes advantage of its excellent location on the riverfront.