Rising Tides Studio: collaborative visions for our future coasts

Coastal zones, including coastal wetlands, are experiencing increasing pressure from the impacts of climate change, environmental change, and population growth. Developing new visions for their long-term future that respond to community values and projected changes can be challenging. The Rising Tides Studio presents a new and exciting approach to synthesising community engagement, physical science and landscape architecture, with the goal of providing creative visions for future coastal resilience. Arts-based workshops were conducted in the City of Cockburn in July 2024, with community members asked to express what is important to them about the coastal region. Key themes from the workshops and courses in nature-based engineering formed integrated briefs for a series of landscape architecture studios at the UWA School of Design, guided by Daniel Jan Martin and Rosie Halsmith. With an absence of diverse, nature-based visions for our coastal zones, the work of the Rising Tides Studio is helping to create a dialogue about coastal futures with the community, and inform policy, planning and decisions for areas undergoing rapid change.