Promoting collaborative Geodesign in a multidisciplinary and multiscale environment: Coastal Georgia 2050, USA

This paper summarizes the process and results from a three-day geodesign workshop conducted in Athens, Georgia, USA, involving the application of a digital design online workflow that enables rapid, real time geodesign collaboration. Twenty five participants, from a variety of disciplines, organizations, and interests, were involved in producing a single negotiated and agreed design, from a series of conceptual designs that were created and evaluated at two scales: a county and a historic site scale. A coastal county (Chatham, GA), where the historic city of Savannah is located, and a historic site (Wormsloe), were both the subject of study. Scenarios for 2030 and 2050 were studied by participants, based on expected changes from large projects such as the $706 million Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP), long term changes from climate (sea level rise, natural hazards), and increasing tourists and visitors to the Wormsloe Historic Site. During the workshop, the online application facilitated the process of visualizing and comparing the different models following STEINITZ’ geodesign framework (representation, evaluation, change, impact, and decision models), as well as engaging in negotiation and decision-making among different interest group teams.