Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront

The future of New York’s waterfronts has been identified as one of the most urgent challenges the nation’s largest city faces, with the anticipated rise in sea levels due to climate change. Comprising an eight-week architects-in-residence workshop at P.S.1 beginning November 16, followed by an exhibition of the resulting design proposals at MoMA, Rising Currents’ purpose is to address the need for the design of adaptive “soft” infrastructures for New York and New Jersey’s Upper Bay.

“The necessity of a response to the regional and national discourse on infrastructure from a contemporary view of high-quality design that also embraces sound ecology has been of urgency for some years, and has taken on new actuality given the national agenda of looking to innovative infrastructure,” said Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA and organizer of Rising Currents. “Rising Currents will undertake new design research in an interdisciplinary way to solve problems that are both local in application and global in implication.”

Four multidisciplinary teams of rising talent at established New York architectural firms have been selected to participate in the eight-week workshop and create models that propose solutions for the effects of climate change on specific areas of New York and New Jersey waterfronts.

“This is an ideal opportunity to use P.S.1 and MoMA as laboratories for new ideas, and to harness the talent of young design practitioners who may be underemployed as a result of the current economic recession,” added Mr. Bergdoll.

Background

The need for the design of adaptive infrastructures for New York is acknowledged in a report presented by the New York City Panel on Climate Change in February 2009 that predicts higher temperatures and rising sea levels for New York City. Based largely on the preliminary findings of a significant study undertaken by the Latrobe Team, a multi-disciplinary Princeton University affiliated group funded by the Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and led by structural engineer Professor Guy Nordenson, Rising Currents addresses the need to intervene in the New York/New Jersey region in a significant adaptive manner.

The issues that Rising Currents seeks to address are explored in a forthcoming book, On the Water: Palisades Bay by Mr. Nordensen, who is professor of structural engineering and architecture at Princeton University and a faculty associate of the University Center for Human Values, and is serving as a consultant to Rising Currents.

The Teams

The selection of team leaders for Rising Currents began with a nomination process by which deans, practitioners, journalists, and other members of a multidisciplinary group suggested candidates. Candidates then submitted proposals to a jury of MoMA and P.S.1 curators and invited professionals, including Amanda Burden (Chair of the New York City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning), David Adjaye (Founder, Adjaye Associates Ltd), Michael Oppenheimer (Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University), and Mr. Nordenson, who made the final selection of team leaders.

Each team leader has assembled a multidisciplinary group of architects, engineers, and landscape designers to focus on a specific geographical waterfront area. Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David Lewis of LTL Architects and team will work on the Northwest Palisade Bay/Hudson River area, which includes parts of New Jersey, Liberty Park/Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty and waters. Matthew Baird of Matthew Baird Architects and his team will focus on the Southwest Palisade Bay/Kill van Kull area, which includes Bayonne, N.J., Bayonne Piers, and northern Staten Island and waters. Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang of nARCHITECTS and their team are assigned the South Palisade Bay/Verrazano Narrows area, including eastern Staten Island, and Bay Ridge and Sunset Park in Brooklyn, and waters. Kate Orff of SCAPE Studio, and her team, will concentrate on the Northeast Palisade Bay/Buttermilk Channel and Gowanus Canal area, including Governors Island, the Red Hook area in Brooklyn, and waters.

The Workshop

The four teams will take up residence at P.S.1, which has been an affiliate of MoMA since 2000, from November 16, 2009, through January 8, 2010.

The workshop is part of the new P.S.1 initiative Free Space, an ongoing program in which artists and non-profit arts organizations are invited to use available gallery space for rehearsals, workshops, research, and events in exchange for an exhibition or live presentation for P.S.1 visitors. Bringing together the New York arts community during a time of economic challenge, several groups and artists have been invited to use P.S.1 as a space for research and development.

There will be two Open House events during the Rising Currents workshops, during which the public is invited to visit the teams and view their works in progress. Open Houses will be held at P.S.1 on Saturday, December 12, and Saturday, January 9, from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. The public is also invited to follow the teams’ progress online at www.moma.org/risingcurrents, where they can participate in an online conversation with curators, designers, and visitors.

The Exhibition

An exhibition of the proposed projects developed by the teams will be installed in MoMA’s galleries for architecture and design from March 24 through August 10, 2010.

In order to provide the context for understanding the problems and issues that the teams were required to address during the workshop phase of Rising Currents, the exhibition will begin with a background presentation of the Latrobe Team’s project, including its final master plan and schematic proposals, a detailed atlas of the New York and New Jersey Upper Bay, historical images, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) generated maps examining the current layers of density, transportation networks, topographic and bathymetric data, 100- and 500-year flood zones, and Category 1, 2, 3, and 4 hurricane storm surge zones, as well as projected flooding based on incremental sea level rise.

At the center of the exhibition will be the physical and digital models and drawings produced by the four teams, whose members will also be involved in designing the exhibition with members of MoMA’s Department of Exhibition Design and Production. The exhibition, therefore, not only will present innovative work for design interventions in the New York/New Jersey harbor and estuaries, but also will contribute a new model of exhibition with public participation in every level from the workshop through to the final exposition.

Included in the exhibition will be designs for soft infrastructure solutions for a site that encompasses Lower Manhattan, by Adam Yarinsky, Principal at Architecture Research Office (ARO), who worked on the Palisade Bay research study with Guy Nordenson and Catherine Seavitt.

The Rising Currents exhibition inaugurates a new series of Architecture and Design exhibitions at MoMA called Issues in Contemporary Architecture, which will focus on timely topics in contemporary architecture with an emphasis on the urban dimension in order to increase public dialogue around seminal issues in architecture.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS :

Mid-project Report: Open Houses

Saturday, December 12, 2:00–6:00 p.m.

Saturday, January 9, 2:00–6:00 p.m.

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

The public is invited to visit the teams and view work-in-progress at P.S.1. The Open Houses will coincide with the Saturday Sessions performance and music programming at P.S.1. For more information, visit www.ps1.org.

ON THE WEB :

A dedicated section on Inside/Out: the MoMA/P.S.1 Blog (www.moma.org/insideout) will feature regular updates on Rising Currents by Barry Bergdoll, team leaders, and team members. The public is invited to follow the teams’ progress and participate in an online conversation with curators, designers, and visitors at www.moma.org/risingcurrents. Additional content from the P.S.1 workshop projects and the resulting exhibition will be added after the workshops end on January 11, 2010.

SPONSORSHIP :

The exhibition is made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation and is the first of five

exhibitions in the series Issues in Contemporary Architecture supported by Andre Singer.