Winner, Rising Tides International Competition

RAYdike is a temporary laser light marker system that depicts a hypothetical barrier required to protect Bay Area cities from rising waters due to climate change. The RAYdike proposal is a bold step towards raising political capital and public awareness to the impact that an estimated 55 inch water level rise will have on the San Francisco Bay in 100 years. The logistical complexity needed to protect urban and estuarine ecologies will be a massive undertaking involving public involvement at multiple levels. To confront these realities, the RAYdike array is proposed as a means to initiate creative efforts for preventative action.

Projected into the moist night air, RAYdike relies on the Bay's atmospheric condition for intermittent, low-lying coastal fog, and uses a laser light system to project a worst-case scenario for barrier elevations directly upon the water's edge. The result is a realistic depiction of tall barrier walls surrounding urban cores and natural tidal shores. Rather than relying on disseminated informational texts and color-coded diagrams, RAYdike places a future reality directly in confrontation with our present lives.