Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)
Department
Landscape Architecture
First Advisor
Suzanne Mathew
Second Advisor
Theodore Hoerr
Abstract
How will inundation change the design of city coastlines? This thesis is an investigation into strategies to mitigate urban flooding from storm surge in Coney Island NY.
In Phase 1, dynamic phenomena are identified and deconstructed, the result are properties that can be assembled to make a machine that applies forces to wet plaster, which solidified to yield insights into the sectional forms of waves. This process was used to inform a conceptual model documenting the site’s physical form, and the relative differences between land and water in terms of its density and porosity.
In Phase 2, a catalog of different coastal edges are pulled together from locally observable types of coastal edges, as well as more contemporary solutions. The outcome is an understanding of coastal engineering as ranging from hard seawalls to softer solutions involving lots of vegetation. The most contemporary solutions all begin to intentionally influence the deposition and erosion of coastal sediment in order to renourish the shoreline. These approaches are used to inform the direction of future research.
In Phase 3, this range of analyses are synthesized to form new hybridized coastal edges. This method has yielded new insights into coastal urban landscapes, specifically in order to address the crisis in New York City’s waterfront.
Coney Island was selected because it is one of the most vulnerable parts of Brooklyn - following the wake of Hurricane Sandy this neighborhood has barely been rebuilt.
As it has turned out, retrofitting hundreds of thousands of old bungalows with modern HVAC units, insulation and sprinklers - and then lifting them 10-12 feet off their foundations onto stilts, while certainly technically feasible, is not possible by Mayor De Blasio’s 2016 deadline for the rebuilding assistance program.
“In this sense, the very words “Build It Back” miss the point — unless by “back” you mean back, way back, from the water’s edge.” -
While it is technically possible to rebuild thousands of residences here, it is not a sound idea for pragmatic reasons.
Recommended Citation
Fischer, Georges, "Super natural : hybrid strategies for urban flood protection in Coney Island NY" (2017). Masters Theses. 79.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/79
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.