10 Projects Advance to Rebuild by Design’s Final Round

After three months of in-depth analysis and public outreach, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has shortlisted 10 design “opportunities” for the third and final round of Rebuild by Design. The design competition, focused on making New York’s Sandy-effected regions more resilient, sustainable, and livable, will now have the final project teams collaborate with local and regional stakeholders in developing their projects over the next five months. The goal is to arrive at projects that are implementable and fundable, leveraging the variety of federal recovery investments being made in the region.

OMA, BIG and WXY are just a few practices involved in the final round. Read on to review a glimpse of each shortlisted proposal.

The Final Shortlist:

Coastal Commercial Resiliency Financing 
Project Team: HR&A Advisors, Inc. with Cooper, Robertson & Partners  
Location: Regional

The HR&A team is working with businesses, merchants associations, and local government in up to three vulnerable areas in New York City and on the New Jersey shore to create a replicable financial tool to enable implementation of temporary and long-term physical and operational interventions, protecting critical local businesses from future extreme weather events and climate change.

Resilience + The Beach
Project Team: Sasaki, Rutgers, Arup
Location: New Jersey

Sasaki’s vision for the Jersey Shore builds upon one of its most valuable assets – the beach. Three typologies define the beach culturally, economically and ecologically: the Barrier Island, Headlands, and Inland Bay. Within this framework, the design opportunity rethinks iconic elements of the human experience of the shore – the pier, the boardwalk, and the marina – to integrate ecological function and help the region adapt in the face of sea level rise.

Designing with Nature for the Future of the Mid-Atlantic Coast
Project Team: WXY, West 8
Location: Regional

A paradigm shift in coastal planning is essential at the regional level. A cost-benefit analysis reveals the potential for large scale storm mitigation measures to play a significant role in coastal management. The design opportunity here is in the governance, insurance, and communications mechanisms that would aid in the resiliency of this vulnerable territory.

New Medowlands: Productive City + Regional Park
Project Team: MIT CAU, ZUS, Urbanisten 
Location: New Jersey

Our project includes a gradual conversion of substantial parts of the Meadowlands into a regional landscape infrastructural park that protects the edges from floods and rebuilds biodiversity lost over the past century; absorbs water; and hosts recreational, civic programs. Along the edges, a mix of new residential density and other uses could take advantage of the park as a civic amenity.

Living with the Bay: Resiliency-Building Options for Nassau County’s South Shore
Project Team: Interboro Team
Location: New York

This project presents a collection of resiliency-building initiatives for communities on Nassau County’s South Shore. While the safety of residents during future extreme weather events is the main goal of these initiatives, each seeks to also enhance the quality of everyday life in non-emergency times. Taken as a whole, the initiatives present a collection of relatively low-risk, “no regrets” propositions for the present that sow seeds for a more resilient future.

Resist, Delay, Store, Discharge: a comprehensive strategy for Hoboken
Project Team: OMA
Location: New Jersey

Hoboken is susceptible to both flash flood and storm surge. Our project capitalizes on a combination of political, ecological, and economic factors to create a comprehensive flood strategy – resist, delay, store, discharge – that both defends the entire city, and enables commercial, civic, and recreational amenities to take shape.

The BIG “U”
Project Team: BIG TEAM
Location: New York

The multivalent ‘U’ consists of multiple but linked design opportunities; each on different scales of time, size and investment; each local neighborhood tailoring its own set of programs, functions, and opportunities. Small, relatively simple projects maintain the resiliency investment momentum post-Sandy, while setting in motion the longer-term solutions that will be necessary in the future.

Living, Growing Breakwaters: Staten Island and Raritan Bay
Project Team: SCAPE / Landscape Architecture
Location: New York

Our layered strategy introduces protective breakwaters and interior tidal flats that can dissipate wave energy and slow the water, while rebuilding sustainable oyster populations within the Harbor. Working with locally impacted communities a range of alternative futures can be developed that are effective, resilient, and complimentary to the ongoing shoreline work of the area.

HUNTS POINT / LIFELINES
Project Team: PennDesign, OLIN
Location: New York

This Design Opportunity engages community to develop site-specific designs for integrated storm protection and green infrastructure that offers high quality social space, engages industrial property owners, and has components that can be manufactured locally and built cooperatively. The aim is to stake out the potential of hybrid port protection and ecology uses throughout the estuary.

Resilient Bridgeport Network
Project Team: unabridged Coastal Collective
Location: Connecticut

The project will build the spaces and programs for the South End of Bridgeport to become more self-sufficient through public safety, education and job training, community activities, and a mix of commercial and housing functions fostering connections between people. The City’s proposed Green Collar Institute will become part of the neighborhood’s resilience, training people for green industrial processes, building retrofitting, construction disassembly and salvage, landscaping, environmental remediation, renewable energy, and materials upcycling research and development.

Reference: HUD, Rebuild by Design
Project descriptions via HUD.

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