Friday, July 30, 2010

Oyster-Tecture Ben Abelman (5).avi

Rising Currents:NYC Harbor Boat Tour


"Rising Currents is about getting back to what brought people here.. "Barry Bergdoll, MoMA Chief Curator of Architecture and Design


“The exhibition and our tour is to view New York harbor where the national discussion on infrastructure and climate change intersect....get the idea of the water being up to your feet on deck, does that make it more palpable?”

Through his masterful interweaving of urgent issues, port history, and future visioning Barry Bergdoll led a richly informative tour through the 5 project sites. To transport us to the imaginative terrain of the architects-in-residence, Barry suggests we begin by softening the edges between land and sea and consider getting back to what originally brought people to New York, the port.

Each project team spokesperson offered some solution for us to live, work and grow more at sea:

Matter-of-Factly:

“We carved out some buildings in our design because, they'd be underwater anyway” Susannah Drake with a new sunken forest and coast extension for the East River.

“As you can see, it is currently a brownfield, the strategy is to have it absorb storm surges” Paul Lewis Water Proving Ground project for Liberty State Park

Deferentially,

“Inspired by the Dutch, the resilient inflatable dams are to accommodate the 9 million population growth “ Noah Levy for the New Aqueous City proposed for Sunset Park, Bay Ridge and Staten Island and

Michael Baird's Zone 2 Working Waterline with reuse of WWII buildings to raise green land and process waste water into fuel”

And hopefully:


"In 2050 after they have cleaned the canal, YES, we will again be able eat oysters from the Gowanus Canal" Ben Abelman's Oyster-Tecture.


Any ideas for your harbor? We'd love to hear them.

For the next Center for Architecture boat tour August, check http://bit.ly/aia-ny for details. For more about Rising Currents: Projects for New Yorks' Waterfront, visit MoMA.org/risingcurrents.

@n_o_r_a + @RachelWells re-connecting