While some city planners are thinking pragmatically about how the city will have to respond to rising sea levels, a recent article (with some great photos to go with it) over at The Atlantic Cities website shows an inventive and fanciful approach for adapting Manhattan to a more watery future. Architects Tingwei Xu and Xie Zhang have imagined a porous, lattice form that clings to the sides of preexisting buildings, creating a complex waterproof pedestrian network to replace the hypothetically submerged streets and sidewalks. The megastructure incorporates plant-life seamlessly into what would be a very different looking lower Manhattan. This kind of project shows another example of designing for long-term climate changes in the city, which apparently need to be taken into account in future city planning. (Photo via ULGC)