Wednesday 17 October 2012

NEW YORK | AMSTERDAM | GLIMPSES 2040

BREATHING | NEW YORK 



IMAGE ABOVE: LAUNCHES




IMAGE ABOVE: DREDGE USE ALONG THE HUDSON RIVER ESTUARY

NYC is a marine city built on the world's fourth largest estuary. Since its founding in the early 1600s until the late 1900's, this environment has been in decline and its great biodiversity has been replaced by cultural diversity. This proposal creates a new infrastructure for uniting these disparate realms by building a series of archipelagos and marine streets along the Hudson. As more and more NYC coastline is converted from industrial to recreational uses, this proposal seeks sustainable relationships of exchange between working and recreational waterfronts, terrestrial and aquatic habitats.

Our “Dredgescape” proposal looks beyond the shoreline to create opportunities for New Yorkers to use the entire estuary as a park and creating a series of launches and landings for human powered water vessels. The islands are grouped across from one another on the shores of New Jersey and New York, making it possible to kayak from one side to the other more easily. The archipelagos will be place at intervals approximately two rowing hours apart from the port at the base of Manhattan all the way up the estuary to Troy New York. This will allow for trips at all skill levels and even offer camping amenities for a weeklong trip.

While greatly expanding the recreational experiences for the community, the islands would also create a rich ecology making a more sustainable and stable environment. “Dredgescape” would greatly increase the wetlands in the Hudson River, providing a more natural and diverse ecosystem. The marine street launches would improve stormwater management while protecting the city from unpredictable storm surges. 

Not only would the proposal reunite the urban city with its natural environment but would provide an opportunity to locally utilize the dredge material constantly created from maintaining the active shipping routes along the Hudson River. Currently this material is relocated to Virginia and Texas. We estimate that the islands would reuse approximately 20% of the dredge material produced between now and 2040.


W Architecture and Landscape Architecture have also taken water as their starting point. They have created archepelagos, made using dredge from the port, which provide habitats as well as landing banks.  The energy exchange between work and recreation, terrestrial and aquatic is interesting and the planned forecast for years to come shows foresight.
 
Application to Paddington. Fusion of work and recreation? Why does everything have to be segregated? The opportunities created between hybrid spaces is interesting and should be explored - linking up spaces that have no relevance to each other and no delineation between these opposing uses.

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