Rockaway’s Housing Superstorm: Between Rising Waters and Climate Gentrification

The studio will design a new public realm and reimagine future housing on New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula. For over a century, the Rockaways have been defined by displacement of residents from their homes, from eminent domain wielded by Robert Moses to the tidal surge of Superstorm Sandy. Displacement from the peninsula’s housing has also accelerated since 2012, due to homes damaged and destroyed during the storm, uneven support to repair and rebuild, and rising rents and real estate prices.

As relations between coastal waters and lands change through rising sea-levels, cloudbursts, and storm surges, life on the Rockaways will become increasingly challenged. The studio recognizes that the peninsula will be inundated by 2100 and that inventive housing strategies of adaptation are needed, including repair, elevation, and even relocation. An expanded and resilient public realm will be essential to address decades of uneven development and to place community and climate justice at the heart of future designs.

Studio projects will firstly research the histories and plans of New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula, relations between the public spaces, dynamic waterfronts, and housing challenges. Secondly, students will work closely with community groups to co-design a new public realm, connecting housing with community spaces, public beaches, coastal defenses, and metropolitan transport. Thirdly, students will develop long-term strategies of repair, elevation, and relocation for the Rockaway Peninsula — addressing residents’ concerns for both housing and public realm.

The beaches, parks, and public housing of the Rockaway Peninsula have a strong presence and long history. However, they have also been used in the past to divisively disconnect neighborhoods and residents. A new public realm across the Rockaways will become more important in the coming decades as housing is repaired, elevated, and relocated. It will provide a consistent ground of spaces, buildings, policies, and actions that put concerns for residents at the core of Rockaway’s future.

This interdisciplinary studio will develop proposals that employ mapping, CAD, and 3D modelling, from the scale of public spaces, building massing, and coastal sections to regional topography and bathymetry. Studio projects will reflect on the initiatives of city and state agency programs, supported by FEMA. These include the NY Forward proposal to revitalize Far Rockaway with new urban developments elevated beyond the height of Sandy’s storm surge.

The studio will work in close dialogue with RISE (Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity), NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority), NYCDDC (New York City Department of Design and Construction), and designers working in the Rockaways. Details of the brief will be developed with these organizations and in close coordination with the Joint Center for Housing Studies and Department of Landscape Architecture of Harvard University.

A design background is strongly recommended and competence in GIS and three-dimensional modelling is required.

The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 3rd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. As this course meets on Tuesday, the first meeting of this course will be on Thursday, September 5th. It will meet regularly thereafter.