8 minute read
Adapting to Climate Change Battery Park City
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ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE @ BATTERY PARK CITY
by Varun Kohli AIA, LEED AP, Assistant Vice President – Planning & Design, Battery Park City Authority
Background: The interrelationship between the natural and built environment has come full circle: from a time when architecture was designed to protect us from the weather, in-sync with the natural environment; to a point where the built environment detached itself from its adjacent natural environments, while relying fully on technology of building conditioning systems; to the current urgency of protection from impacts of climate change. We are now racing to re-adapt our built environment to the impacts of changing climate to avoid catastrophic destruction to our urban centers - especially our coastal cities and communities.
Battery Park City (BPC), a 92-acre, mixed-use neighborhood on Manhattan’s lower west side, is one of many such coastal communities around the world facing the impact of climate change induced coastal storms and tidal flooding combined with extreme precipitation. While BPC was impacted by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, it escaped the most severe damage from the storm. This will not hold true with the projected future sea level rise (SLR) and frequent severe storms. BPC is preparing for the inevitable future, and in alignment with other Lower
Manhattan Coastal Resiliency projects planned and executed by the City of New York, is designing and building to protect against a 100 year storm in the 2050s. Using data inputs for coastal stillwater elevation from FEMA, recommended SLR rates from the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), and other sources, a coastal model was developed to provide the design team with design flood elevations (DFEs) that will protect against impact of future storms. BPC consists of over a mile and a half of coastal waterfront with beloved urban parks, plazas, and esplanades that host a variety of public programming and passive uses. It is challenging, to say the least, to disrupt these urban spaces, install flood barrier systems (FBS), and continue to retain the character and quality of these spaces. This challenge, however, can be looked upon as an opportunity to ‘reset’ and re-think the relationship of the built-environment with the natural environment and to realign how we live, work, and play in a post-pandemic world. At BPC, a multi-solution approach has been applied to adapt to and continue to mitigate climate change, while creating healthy livable spaces for their occupants. Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) has divided the resiliency work into three separate projects (Fig. 1) including 1) BPC Ball Fields Resiliency, 2) South Battery Park City Resiliency (SBPCR) and 3) North-West Battery Park City Resiliency (NWBPCR) projects. The BPC Ball Fields Resiliency project has been completed as an interim protective measure until the other two permanent barrier systems are in place. As of now, SBPCR has been designed and is slated to begin construction this fall. The larger NWBPCR will be designed and built using the Progressive Design Build (PDB) delivery method, for which the design-build team has been selected.
Fig. 1 – Battery Park City’s three separate resiliency projects
The SBPCR project boundary encompasses the northern side of Museum of Jewish Heritage and extends south to include Wagner Park, and Pier A Plaza and east across northern portions of The Battery. It should be noted that the boundaries of resiliency projects are typically defined by the extent of the FBS alignment and termination at high-ground or tie-backs, as defined by the DFEs. The same is the case with SBPCR. The project site, while sprinkled with lush lawn and gardens, a waterfront esplanade, plazas, and shaded streetscapes, contains a key urban oasis that is central to the design of the project - Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park. The existing Wagner Park consists of two expansive lawns with views out to the harbor, intimate garden spaces to the north and south of the lawns, allées of trees that provide shade to pedestrians to the east, and a pavilion structure that hosts a restaurant space, the park’s maintenance space, and public restrooms. One of the guiding design principles has been to retain the key characteristics of the park, the pavilion and Pier A Plaza, while adhering to sustainable design and construction practices. The project design team has adhered to these guidelines, and the process itself has gone through years-long public engagement, largely through the local community board and elected officials, to incorporate suggestions from the public and culminating in a design that not only retains the character of Wagner Park, but is sure to enhance its experiential quality—all while creating protection against a 100-year storm in the 2050s.
Fig. 2 – Existing site plan with proposed flood barrier system alignment shown in blue
The FBS itself takes on various forms as it traverses through the project. In Wagner Park, the FBS is a buried wall under the raised park to keep it concealed, while it is exposed at locations north and south of the park. In order to bury the FBS, the park has been raised approximately 10 feet from its current elevation, creating a new terrain and design problem to solve. At exposed locations, the wall is carefully detailed and designed to respond to its physical context. As an example, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage exterior, the top of FBS is kept transparent to ensure views from the building are not obstructed. At Pier A, it is adorned with Pearl Grey granite to break down the scale of the wall.
Fig. 3 – S-BPCR Site Plan
While the new Wagner Park brings back the lawn and gardens, it is now substantially higher and requires terrain negotiations using ramps to the west and sloped allees to the east, to provide access to the elevated park. The design has incorporated pathways that adhere to universal access guidelines. The new Pavilion, designed by Thomas Phifer & Partners, is a curvilinear warm colored concrete structure with organic arches and vaults that welcome visitors to circulate underneath and through them. The form of the building retains the ‘gateway’ element of the existing pavilion, opening up to the lawn and magnificent views of the New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty beyond. The structure consists of two wings, the south, accommodating a new restaurant space and the other to the north with flexible community space; with both containing public restrooms at park grade. While similar in footprint and scale to the existing structure, the new pavilion also takes advantage of the grade differential to provide new storage and kitchen spaces with back-of-house access from Battery Place. The new building has negotiated grade differential elegantly, aligned itself with the contextual quality, and provided spaces that meet the need of the community and operations teams. The project never lost sight of sustainability throughout the design process, integrating strategies and technologies to deliver a carbon-neutral building. The pavilion is targeting ‘Zero-Carbon’ certification by International Living Futures Institute (ILFI). The building is electrified and does not have any combustion on site, including for heating, cooling or cooking. This is done to take advantage of a clean electric grid in the future and eliminate carbon emissions. Until then, BPCA is committed to offset all carbon emissions attributable to the building. Embodied carbon in materials is being calculated, disclosed, and mitigated through carbon offsets. It is estimated that the project will reduce embodied carbon by about 35% as compared to similar buildings. In addition, a below-grade cistern will collect stormwater to be re-used for irrigation throughout the neighborhood’s 36 acres of public parkland, In addition to the building certification, the project is projected to get WEDG (Watefront Edge Design Guidelines)
Fig. 4 (top) – Bird’s eye view of proposed elevated Wagner Park with Pavilion. Fig. 5 (Bottom) – Vista of the New York harbor and Statue of Liberty from the Pavilion.
certification by the waterfront alliance. As the project starts construction in the last quarter of 2022, various sustainable construction strategies, such as waste diversion from landfill, have also been put in place. As we prepare a vibrant urban gem in New York City to face the impact of climate change, we continue to design and build sustainably, we continue to enhance the public realm, we continue to adapt to the way we use these spaces, and we continue to harmonize our relationship to the natural environment. At Battery Park City, we will re-establish our relationship to the water’s edge and secure our future. l
DESIGN TEAM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DESIGN LEAD | AECOM NYC Landscape Studio
ENGINEERING | AECOM (Structural, Marine, Coastal Modeling, Permitting)
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OF RECORD | Siteworks
CIVIL ENGINEERING | Magnusson Klemencic Associates
ARCHITECTURE (PAVILION) | Thomas Phifer and Partners
SUSTAINABILITY | Atelier Ten
At Battery Park City Authority, Varun leads strategic design, planning, and sustainability efforts for the 92 acre development in Lower Manhattan, with a focus on urban resiliency and de-carbonization of existing and new buildings. Prior to joining Battery Park City Authority, Varun led the sustainability team at Buro Happold to draft Battery Park City’s Sustainability Plan and Green Guidelines. For over a decade, he has worked on integrating environmental analytics with design in firms including HOK and SOM as well as his own practice, Merge Studio in New York. Established in 1968, The Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority is a New York State Public Benefit Corporation charged with developing and maintaining a well-balanced, 92-acre community of commercial, residential, retail and open space, including 36 acres of public parks, on Manhattan’s Lower West Side. Through execution of its first-ever strategic plan, BPCA works daily toward being an inclusive community, a safe and climate resilient place, and a vibrant public space, all while demonstrating leadership for the future with a team dedicated to improving service and project delivery. For more info visit: bpca.ny.gov
