Background

Crumbling Land is a multidisciplinary research project by Noah Gotlib studying climate migration's impact on property and sovereignty in North America. Begun as a master’s thesis project in 2019 at the Architectural Association in London, it has since been developed through further research.
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Crumbling Land is a study of spaces which have been systematically abandoned in response to the effects of climate change. No longer able to safeguard every home and community, governments are beginning to shift resources from protecting vulnerable communities to removing, abandoning, or relocating them. Across North America, roads are being unpaved, bridges are being condemned, flood and fire-prone properties bought-up, and levees removed to create larger floodplains, sacrificing infrastructure created over the last two centuries of urbanization to preserve what remains habitable. 

Crumbling Land is being developed as an archive and study of homes, neighbourhoods, and communities which climate migration is quietly removing from the map. It collects documentation from field work in over 30 communities, in 8 states and provinces, which have been relocated or removed.

Noah Gotlib

is an Canadian/American architectural designer and researcher based in Toronto. He studied at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Architectural Association in London, where he earned his M.Arch/AA Diploma (with commendation) in 2020. He has worked for design and landscape architecture practices in the UK and Canada, and has taught design studio and workshops at the Architectural Association. He is the co-founder of Eolith, a think tank engaging in spatial research, design, and consultancy.

Timeline

2024

November: Crumbling Land is publicly exhibited for the first time at the Institute for Public Architecture’s Assembly exhibition. 

September: Noah joins the Institute for Public Architecture’s Independent Projects Residency on Governors Island in New York City to further develop Crumbling Land.

August: The second research trip for Crumbling Land covers the great plains, passing through Manitoba and North Dakota.

June: The first research trip for Crumbling Land visits communities undergoing Managed Retreat along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, passing through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and Iowa.

2023
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September: Crumbling Land awarded with a Research and Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to study landscapes undergoing Managed Retreat across Canada and the US.

June: “Walden in Retreat”, a lecture on the role of pastoral imagery in depictions of the American landscape given at the conference At What Point Managed Retreat?: Habitability and Mobility in an Era of Climate Change, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York City. 

2020
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June: Crumbling Land begins as a Master’s thesis at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, UK studying the erosion of the Jeffersonian Grid, and proposing methods of strategic abandonment of communities threatened by flooding. 


© Noah Gotlib 2025
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