Transitive Edge

Between Bridges, Beyond Infrastructure

East Manhattan, NY

The threats of rising sea levels require immediate rethinking of the role of ecology and infrastructure in Manhattan, at the same time, this represents an opportunity to reconfigure the nature of the city and its hard-edged engineered coastline. There’s a need to envision a system able of managing rising sea levels and increased storm surge. This proposal focuses on re-inventing the transition between city and water; envisioning to activate the edge throughout the integration of flexible and adaptable infrastructure systems into the city. The existent infrastructure is used as foundation to build a raised barrier for the coastal edge. A thickened edge will be able to accommodate habitable space, encouraging the linkage between the urban realm of the city and the new raised level. Terraced and sloping surfaces will eventually be the mean by which the fluctuations in water level are made part of the public experience. Consisting of three basic components, the proposal generates an interconnected system: the nature/ecological scape, the public scape, and the architectural scape. The above and below ground performance of the city gets supported by the integrated and multifunctional hybrid infrastructure. The celebration of water takes place throughout the trajectory of all three systems.

GSD Studio |Spring 2011 Professors: Sussannah Drake and Stephen Cassell Tools: Adobe CS, AutoCAD, GIS, SketchUp, Rhinoceros