Greater Miami and the Islands are one of the most climate-vulnerable regions on planet Earth. In the coming decades, the low-lying areas of Miami are set to be swallowed by sea-level rise combined with increased yearly threats of hurricanes, king tides, tropical storm surges and heatwaves. Multiple lineups of powers - municipal, state, federal, and private - debate, strategize, borrow and spend billions to defend the region and its environments with incremental adaptation strategies that do not look at more extended periods until 2100. Not far away from Miami, the strongest Hurricane named Dorian on record hit the Bahamas, wreaking massive devastation on the islands and loss of life with maximum sustained winds of 297 km/h. The storm surge topped 7 meters above normal tide levels in September 2019. For Miami 2.5 to 3 meters of sea-level rise by 2100 is possible and catastrophic with storm surges up to 7 to 10 meters. Inundations of this magnitude would physically displace some 800,000 to 1,000,000 residents of Miami-Dade County and surrender a large portion of the urban settlements uninhabitable if the decision-makers continue and do not raise the infrastructures and buildings accordingly to the predicted future sea and storm surge levels.
Besides, most of the infrastructure in Miami is over 80 years old. Out of control runoffs, contaminants and thousands of leaking septic tanks pollute and spill yearly millions of gallons sewage into the bay. On top of all of this, the porous limestone rocks its residents live and work on every day means there is no stopping of sea-level rise, changing ocean currents, storm surges and the intrusion of saltwater and contaminants into the drinking water aquifers.
Under the three year umbrella of CRUNCH (Climate Resilient Urban Nexus CHoices), and the Food-Water-Energy Nexus research, this Second Volume looks at designing adaptive, resilient, biology-inspired, off-the-grid and carbon-positive green-blue infrastructures, self-growing coastal barrier islands and buildings on a timeline from 2019 to 2100. These systems and structures act as dynamic self-powered hybrids that are floating, sitting in, out, or under the water with the ability to be completely self-sufficient. Volume 2 features experimental scenarios of selected design approaches each envisioning and testing self-sustaining, adaptive, and resilient green-blue infrastructures with living shorelines, buildings and neighbourhoods, all benchmarked against 100% carbon-neutrality and the Food- Water-Energy nexus. All research designs are based on approximately 80-year scenarios in which modeling by NOAA, NASA, and reinsurance companies placed much of the Miami Beaches and parts of the low-lying areas of South Miami existing infrastructures and properties underwater. The studies include strategies to identify disruptive technologies and dynamically changing cultural identities, anticipate future potentials, and mitigate the issues as mentioned above through generative design strategies and AI-assisted planning transformations in the specific social, cultural, and ecological context of Miami Beach and the City of South Miami.

Thomas Spiegelhalter is a professor and a co-director of the Structures and Environmental Technologies Laboratory in the School of Architecture at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami. As a registered architect, engineer and town planner, Thomas has performed design and built research in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the U.S. on numerous solar, carbon-positive, zero-fossil-energy architectural projects; large-scale master planning and post-industrial infrastructures, landscapes, and engineered suspension bridges. As a result of his 30 years of awarded designs and built work, consulting, research, and teaching, Spiegelhalter has received 54 prizes, awards, and honours in competitions individually and in collaboration with engineers, biologists and landscape architects. His research work as a Professor at FIU involves geospatial and climatic data repositories with AI-ML data-driven generative design workflows and coding with biomimetics. The current FIU CRUNCH research (http://crunch.fiu.edu/) is focused on optimized green-blue infrastructures and shorelines, self-growing islands and structures, building and city designs and fitness tests towards carbon-positive resilience on a timeline from 2020 to 2100.