BIG

THE BIG U - REBUILD BY DESIGN . N.Y.

BIG . rebuild by design

Rebuild by Design, an initiative of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and HUD, is aimed at addressing structural and environmental vulnerabilities that Hurricane Sandy exposed in communities throughout the region and developing fundable solutions to better protect residents from future climate events.

earlier scheme:

Because of the enormity of this challenge, the Rebuild by Design process was developed to find better ways of implementing designs and informing policy. Each of the ten participating design teams, selected by the President’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, brings together experts from across planning, design, engineering and science to critically consider the task of rebuilding.

We propose a protective system around Manhattan from West 57th street south to The Battery and up to East 42nd street: 9.8 continuous miles of low-lying geography that comprise an incredibly dense, vibrant, and vulnerable urban area. US infrastructure traditionally has not been civic or accessible, but rather, it has been imposed on our cities at large scale with sometimes terrible consequences for the urban experience. How can we combine the mandate of large-scale protective infrastructure with meaningful community engagement? How can we manifest the requirements of a ‘Robert Moses’ hard infrastructure combined with the local community-driven sensitivity of Jane Jacobs? 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.

HUD
THE BIG U - REBUILD BY DESIGN

Partner in Charge:
Bjarke Ingels, Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Thomas Christofferson
Project Leader: Jeremy Alain Siegel, Daniel Kidd
Team:
Kurt Nieminen, Sun Yifu, Dammy Lee, Jack Lipson, David Spittler, Kenneth Amoah, Choonghyo Lee, Wesley Chiang, David Dottelonde, Taylor Hewitt, Patricia Correa
Velasquez

client: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
collaborators: ONE ARCHITECTURE, STARR WHITEHOUSE, JAMES LIMA PLANNING + DEVELOPMENT, LEVEL INFRASTRUCTURE, BURO HAP POLD, ARCADIS, GREEN SHIELD ECOLOGY, AEA CONSULTING, PROJECT PROJECTS, SCHOOL OF CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENTS AT PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN​
size: 1000000 M2
location: LOWER MANHATTAN
status: IN PROGRESS