Rockaway’s Housing Superstorm: Between Rising Waters and Climate Gentrification is a Studio Report from the Fall 2024 semester at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design based on the project-based seminar led by Ed Wall.

Rockaway’s Housing Superstorm brings together concerns for coastal neighborhoods in New York City that are under threat from both rising sea levels and processes of gentrification. The report follows the three-part journey of the project: firstly designing community workshops, supported by the community organization RISE (Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity); secondly, developing a public space plan that connect areas of housing—in particular public housing—with Jamaica Bay; and thirdly, in the context of predicted sea level rises, forming longer-term spatial strategies that address needs for repair, elevation, and relocation.

While many questions were posed through the semester, one concern repeatedly reemerged: From planning the project to editing this report, we consistently asked how we can develop fair and meaningful conversations that can empower the communities we worked with. This report describes our endeavors to achieve this.

The project was initiated by the Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gary R. Hilderbrand; it was generously supported by David Luberoff and Chris Herbert at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies ; and it was made possible through a collaboration with Jeanne DuPont at RISE (Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity).

Read this report in full on issuu .