Allan Shulman and Team Design for a Buoyant City

Shulman Study to Incentivize Adaptive Development
Buoyant City
Buoyant City: Miami Beach Historic District Resiliency and Adaptation Guidelines, developed by Allan Shulman and a national team, passed unanimously by the Historic Preservation Board and will go before the City Commission in early 2020. Allan will be presenting the guidelines at the National AIA Conference in Los Angeles in May 2020.
 
Over the next 60 years, most buildings in the historic districts that largely comprise Miami Beach will need to be substantially rehabilitated or reconstructed to provide resiliency to rising waters. How shall this be accomplished, and what type of city will result? Will these areas survive as historic districts? Shulman’s study argues that Miami Beach’s vibrant historic districts should be preserved, must evolve to survive, and that preservation can be redeployed as a powerful adaptive tool; the City of Miami Beach must reconsider its preservation standards, and create mechanisms that will allow adaptive development. It should incentivize adaptive development, by allowing new layers of urban fabric to grow from within.