Fort Pierce Shoreline

In response to frequent hurricane damage along South Florida’s coastline that chronically damaged the waterfront infrastructure, this project rejected the traditional use of wave screens and floating attenuators as insufficient and devised a novel approach: a 1,000-meter archipelago of artificial islands. This strategy, offering enhanced ecological value, used diverse textures and forms like pliable dunes, pocket beaches and coves, vegetated buffers, and artificial reefs while achieving equal or better wave protection. By carefully sculpting island geometries, the design redirected tidal currents for sediment control, making the nearshore channel passively self-dredging. The complex shapes created varied habitats for wildlife recolonization, such as avian and aquatic creatures, combining hard and soft armoring methods. Remarkably, the completed project has withstood three hurricanes in a decade without damage to shoreline or protection systems, highlighting its resilience and effectiveness. This innovative approach was conceived and formulated by Jack Cox, Edgewater’s Principal and Director of Engineering, while serving as the Coastal Program Manager at a previous firm, and subsequently continued this partnership and validated and refined the design through physical model testing.