Hasta La Ideas

News: Danish studio BIG has been granted $335 million to upgrade Lower Manhattan’s storm defences, as one of six winners in the Rebuild by Design initiative to revive parts of the USA struck by Hurricane Sandy (+ slideshow).

BIG and Dutch firm One Architecture co-developed the winning Big U scheme as a protective system that would extend ten miles around the tip of Manhattan island, shielding buildings from floods and storm surges.

The $335 million (over £200 million) in combined public and private funds will initially be used to implement the first phase of the project along the Lower East Side, creating a raised “bridging berm” barrier to protect the low-lying ground from storm water and rising sea levels.

The berm will be planted with a selection of salt-tolerant flora, and will provide public spaces and viewpoints as well as routes into the East River Park. BIG founder Bjarke Ingels has drawn comparisons between Big U and New York’s High Line park, which also opened in sections along a disused elevated railway on the west side on Manhattan.

“The Big U is an example of what we call social infrastructure,” said Ingels in a statement. “The High Line shows how a decommissioned piece of infrastructure – the abandoned elevated railway – can be transformed into a public space and green landscape.”

The scheme will eventually include three connected sections that will create new public spaces running from West 57th Street, down to The Battery park and up to East 42nd Street. Each is to comprise a physically discrete flood-protection zone, which can be isolated from the others in an emergency.

“We asked ourselves: What if we could envision the resilience infrastructure for Lower Manhattan in a way that wouldn’t be like a wall between the city and the water, but rather a string of pearls of social and environmental amenities tailored to their specific neighbourhoods, which also happens to shield their hinterlands from flooding,” Ingels said.

Rebuild by Design was founded in 2013 in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the eastern seaboard of the USA in October 2012.

The programme called for solutions to improve the resilience of infrastructure in the Sandy-affected area, including the damaged shorelines of New York City and New Jersey.

Ten multidisciplinary design teams, which included Rem Koolhaas’ OMA and New York studio WXY, were asked to come up with proposals for different sections of the coast – read more about the proposals here.

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