Bridging Gowanus: Affordable Housing & Waterfront Access

Anita Bakshi (Rutgers University)

This talk outlines pedagogical strategies employed in the 2018 Rutgers University Advanced Landscape Architecture Studio on Housing and Open Space. Students worked on a series of proposals to translate recommendations from the June 2018 Draft Framework, Gowanus: A Framework for a Sustainable, Inclusive, Mixed-Use Neighborhood into concrete design options. The framework outlined goals and general concepts for land use, building heights, and community space. Site investigations led to initial lists of values that the students brought to their design work. They translated those values into a series of conceptual, programmatic diagrams. Next, specific sites were examined for context and connections to adjacent uses. From there they developed a few typologies, which were elaborated in detail at the site scale. Detailed study models and material studies were created to illustrate the experiential qualities of the designs.

In order to understand the neighborhood we canoed with the Gowanus Dredgers, met with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy to discuss their Waterfront Access Plan, and spoke with designers from SCAPE working on the Gowanus Lowlands Plan.

Translations of the framework began with urban design proposals that considered how to design within zoning ordinances to address public transportation and parking needs, mitigate contamination and flooding risk, and meet residents’ needs. Through several shifts in scale, detailed design proposals were created for three main sites: The Gowanus Green Site (Public Place), a former gas plant that will be developed for affordable housing; a proposed new bridge at Degraw Street; and the nearby Wycoff Gardens, a NYCHA site where two new buildings will be developed as part of the NYCHA NextGen Plan. In addition to recommendations of the framework, provisions were made to design for sea-level rise, to phase development, and to create social and economic strategies that might actively bring NYCHA residents to new canal-side amenities.