STUDIO
ABBA
Alexa Greene
Andrew Magnus
Camille Newton
Hannah Stollery
ag4206
asm2270
cbn2113
hrs2146
Alexa is an architect and interior designer hoping to continue a career in hospitality design. She is pursuing a Master of Architecture alongside a Master of Real Estate development to approach design with an interdisciplinary understanding.
Andrew is a biochemist turned architecture student who loves to explore how bio-materials and technological processes create sustainable and healthy spaces. He has worked for the City of Nashville as a planner, and at a boutique architectural firm for a year.
Camille is a long-time urban enthusiast and not a first-time city dweller. She majored in Urban Studies: Architecture / Economics as an undergraduate at Barnard. In between her time studying on either side of Broadway, she worked for Rafael Viñoly Architects and Steven Holl Architects in marketing, business administration, and press.
Hannah is a proud Canadian living in New York City. She has degrees in both Economics and Environmental Science, and her ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between our environment and our society. She strives to design a built environment in which architecture works in harmony with our economies, environments, and ecosystems.
A Brooklyn Bay Architecture
Studio ABBA transforms urban spaces within their temporal and demographic contexts. We apply bottom-up and top-down approaches to incorporate sustainability into all aspects of our design. We will focus on the sensory and material micro-climate of the proposed interventions, but also consider how the building opens to the changing Brooklyn ecosystem.
01_Executive Summary Waterloo is a mixed used, public-facing development that focuses on how to live with the growing threat of water. Data predicts that by 2050 New York City’s Climate will closely resemble Charleston, South Carolina. Our proposal aims to resolve flooding and local water quality and includes a series of bioswales, rain gardens, wet meadows, and oyster reef scaffolds which occupy most of the space adjacent to the inlet. Additional programming starts away from the waterline, including a combined skate park and water treatment facility and open-air food hall. The site is extremely close to sea level, and is prone to flooding. This is due to the history of the site, where a pre colonial creek ran through what is now infill. This area also represents the one of the largest sewersheds in Brooklyn, meaning that any stormwater event with more than .26” of
rain will dump more than 6 million gallons of untreated water into the inlet and river. This means that untreated sewage flows out of the inlet roughly every six days. Waterloo is a water zero campus during wet days, and one that would be water negative during dry weather by mining the sewer interceptor at North 12th Street and Kent Avenue. The inner loop of the park is designed to flood and store water as a salt-marsh engineered wetland. Native species are reintroduced in topographic zones that correspond to the amount of water intensity we expect to see in the coming years, this has the added benefit of cleaning runoff from adjacent sites and metabolizing the toxins in the soil. The prospective BQX tram line runs through the site, before it heads over to Manhattan Avenue.
It moves along Kent and Franklin Avenue, which have been raised 6 feet to mitigate frequent flooding. The tram will be powered by wires above. This will give commuters easy access to the new development in the area as well as the new public green space while reducing car traffic. The embankment that hosts the rail line will serve as an emergency stormwater berm at crucial areas of lowest water risk. For the goal of creating equitable modalities, Waterloo transforms Kent-Franklin into a pedestrian and busway inspired by Covid-19 open streets. This will replace the disorienting and dangerous roadway conditions between North 13th and Calyer Street. The city grid extends to create a new pedestrian and bike mews around new incoming development, namely the Acme fish office and amazon music headquarters.
Waterloo reutilizes an existing warehouse that is adjacent to the inlet as well as our proposed skate park water treatment facility. The warehouse is cut in multiple locations to allow more light into the building and unify the language used at the existing Bushwick Inlet Park and new skate park. Hydroponic farming, used to test water quality, inhabit the exposed structure. The first floor of the warehouse acts as an open flexible venue space. It can host a food hall, school field trips, green jobs fairs, concerts, or future programming for the community’s needs. The middle portion of the building contains the typical back of the house functions, maximizing user access on all sides of the building. The BQX cuts through the side of the building facing Kent Avenue. The second floor houses the Billion Oyster Research Center.
02_Park and Building The building that we focused on is the warehouse that is adjacent to the inlet on the south side as well as our proposed skate park water treatment facility. The water treatment skatepark is where all the water is funneled into and processed and then circled back into the buildings in the district. Our proposal cuts into the warehouse in multiple locations to allow more light into the building and the circles incorporate the language of the skatepark. The new cut-aways in the building will inhabit hydroponic farming. The first floor of the warehouse will act as an open flexible space.
The half that is closer to the water will be open to the public acting as a food hall during the day and a flexible venue space at night. The middle portion of the building will act as the back of the house because it is the least valuable part of the building and allows for freedom of space around the edges of the building. The BQX will come into the building off of Kent ave and there will be a covered station here that will help facilitate better mobility to the building both for employees at the Billion oyster research center and visitors to the food hall.
03_Transportation The Bushwick Inlet sits at the crux of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, two very well connected neighborhoods with growing living and working populations. North Brooklyn is easily accessible to Manhattan, Queens, and other parts of Brooklyn by both public and private transportation. As we zoom in, we can see we can see a sprinkling of protected bike lanes that connect to Queens to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and continue down to South Brooklyn. At a closer scale you can notice the mash-up of grids just west of the inlet. The area is prone to accidents, especially with commuters unfamiliar with the changing grids. Improved transportation sits at the heart of the new Waterloo district. Beginning with the roads, we propose elevating Kent and Franklin Avenue by six feet to help create a natural flood barrier. Visitors can either enter the park through gradual sloped paths, terraced steps, or a retaining wall staircase. Kent and Franklin Avenue will be closed to pedestrian traffic from
North 13th to Clayer Street. New protected bike lanes as well as a pedestrian Open Street will take its place, protected by bollards. We are also bringing the prospectus BQX BQX tram line through our site, before it heads over to Manhattan Avenue. It will move along Kent and Franklin Avenue, and sit at grade with the street. The tram will be powered by wires above to mitigate future flood damage. The BQX will arrive in Waterloo at an open-air stop cut through the front of an adapted warehouse building on Kent. It will give commuters easy access to the new development in the area as well as the new public green space while reducing car traffic. Additionally, we are creating new pedestrian and bike mews just west of the Bushwick Inlet Park where the street grids collide. We are extending the street grids to create a new pedestrian and bike mew that connect physically and visually to the Bushwick Inlet Park. The waterfront is trimmed with bike lanes and a pedestrian path that connects to existing paths north and south of the project.
04_Water 04_Water Because Waterloo aims to confront our climate future in this low lying area, the plan for Bushwick Inlet Park, and the proposal for the building, place water use at the forefront of design. At the park scale, an inner ring is designed to be sacrificed to high tide and future flooding conditions, and a salt-marsh sponge helps protect inland hazards during these more frequent weather extremes. At the building scale, water is reconsidered as a district conservation effort: the existing stormwater interceptor underneath Kent and Franklin will be repurposed as a storm-water and greywater recirculation between the various buildings within the Waterloo District. This enables greywater to be recycled as smart as possible: acting as a coolant condensate at one building site, a water feature in another, or as part of an active riparian swale
in a third. Because this ambitious reimagination of water circulation requires storage, we propose a 200,000 gallon greywater cistern, and a 350,000 gallon potable cistern. Because of the high water table and the importance of water, these cisterns are important features of the architecture at the warehouse site, and fill some of the porous cuts made from the original building envelope. Water use intensity, although still much lower than a traditional neighborhood arrangement, requires some intensive water treatment. To resolve the local needs to recapture and treat water, we employ a skatepark around the concrete and mechanical footers needed by clarifiers, settling tanks, and digesters. The skate park and water treatment architectures function symbiotically. The curving industrial aesthetic of the water treatment plant encourag-
es dramatic half-pipes, bowls, and spines that are inviting to the newer generation of urbanites in the area. The skatepark protects and elevates the water treatment needs out of the 100-year flood plain, and covers many of the unsightly connection pipes in the concrete cladding of the skatepark. Finally, the many bowls of the skatepark can act as emergency stormwater reservoirs during severe flood events, they have the capacity to store up to 650,000 gallons of water, about the same as an olympic swimming pool. Since it is unlikely that skaters and park goers will be using the area during these extreme weather conditions, a program-use duality encourages smarter use conditions for the site at off-peak hours.
05_Energy 05_Energy The project site sits among several notable recent developments, all with varying transparency regarding the building’s energy goals. We began by researching the project context, to understand how buildings in the area strive to improve their energy efficiency. From their we broke down our energy goals and began implementing a few key passive and active energy saving strategies. Across the site we hope to take advantage of southern facing high performance glazing, grid orientation to encourage wind flow, and use thinner floor plates with thick insulation. In our adaptive reuse warehouse proposal, we specifically want to take advantage of solar panel usage, open ventilation strategy, and support the needed energy in the adjacent skatepark / water treatment facility. We were careful to locate all energy storage out of the highest risk flood planes, and calculated a realistic target EUI for the warehouse at 70 according to the overall square footage and building use.
06_Other Drivers v
The Waterloo development also takes into account the shift demographics and trends in the area. Through our research we found a strong food desert around the Bushwick Inlet. We also tracted education, politics, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The site is extremely close to sea level, and is prone to flooding. This is due to the history of the site, where a pre colonial creek ran through what is now infill. This area also represents the one of the largest sewersheds in Brooklyn, meaning that any stormwater event with more than .26” of rain will dump more than 6 million gallons of untreated water into the inlet and river. This means
that untreated sewage flows out of the inlet roughly every six days. Waterloo is a water zero campus during wet days, and one that would be water negative during dry weather by mining the sewer interceptor at North 12th Street and Kent Avenue. The inner loop of the park is designed to flood and store water as a saltmarsh engineered wetland. Native species are reintroduced in topographic zones that correspond to the amount of water intensity we expect to see in the coming years, this has the added benefit of cleaning runoff from adjacent sites and metabolizing the toxins in the soil.
05_Site 05_Site Systems Systems The Bushwick Inlet sits at the crux of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, two very well connected neighborhoods with growing living and working populations. North Brooklyn is easily accessible to Manhattan, Queens, and other parts of Brooklyn by both public and private transportation. As we zoom in, we can see we can see a sprinkling of protected bike lanes that connect to Queens to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and continue down to South Brooklyn. At a closer scale you can notice the mash-up of grids just west of the inlet. The area is prone to accidents, especially with commuters unfamiliar with the changing grids. Improved transportation sits at the heart of the new Waterloo district. Beginning with the roads, we propose elevating Kent and Franklin Avenue by six feet to help create a natural flood barrier. Visitors can either enter the park through gradual sloped paths, terraced steps, or a retaining wall staircase. Kent and Franklin Avenue will be closed to pedestrian traffic from
North 13th to Calyer Street. New protected bike lanes as well as a pedestrian Open Street will take its place, protected by bollards. We are also bringing the prospectus BQX BQX tram line through our site, before it heads over to Manhattan Avenue. It will move along Kent and Franklin Avenue, and sit at grade with the street. The tram will be powered by wires above to mitigate future flood damage. The BQX will arrive in Waterloo at an open-air stop cut through the front of an adapted warehouse building on Kent. It will give commuters easy access to the new development in the area as well as the new public green space while reducing car traffic. Additionally, we are creating new pedestrian and bike mews just west of the Bushwick Inlet Park where the street grids collide. We are extending the street grids to create a new pedestrian and bike mew that connect physically and visually to the Bushwick Inlet Park. The waterfront is trimmed with bike lanes and a pedestrian path that connects to existing paths north and south of the project.
2
Aeroponic Farming
3
Grit Removal Bar Screening
Primary Clarifier
Input
1
Inflow Outflow
Pump
Drain
4
Nutrient Solution Reservoir
Output
6
Aeration
Chlorination
Secondary Clarifier
Calyer Place A
5
SKATEPARK WATER TREATMENT PLANT
Pedestrian Walkway Rip Rap Chlorination 10
Riverside 30 Walkway
60
Secondary Clarifier
Soccer Field
Bar Screening
Aeration Primary Clarifier
Grit Removal
Miles
Storage Building A Calyer Place B
Aeroponic Farming
Playground
Building B
Oyster Generation
Output
East river
STUDIO
ABBA A Brooklyn Bay Architecture
NORTH SECTION
10
30
60
Miles
06_Building The building that we focused on is the warehouse that is adjacent to the inlet on the south side as well as our proposed skate park water treatment facility. The water treatment skatepark is where all the water is funneled into and processed and then circled back into the buildings in the district. Our proposal cuts into the warehouse in multiple locations to allow more light into the building and the circles incorporate the language of the skatepark . The new cut-aways in the building will inhabit hydroponic farming. The first floor of the warehouse will act as an open flexible space. The half that is closer to the water will be open to the public acting as a food hall during the day and a flexible venue space at night. The middle portion of the building will act as the back of the house because it is the least valuable part of the building and allows for freedom of space around the edges of the building. The BQX will come into the building off of Kent ave and there will be a covered station here that will help facilitate better mobility to the building both for employees at the Billion oyster research center and visitors to the food hall.
07_Summary / Next Steps In summary, Waterloo aims to integrate an economically sustainable mixed-use development within New York’s changing environment. The project looks closely at the very real and growing threat of water to North Brooklyn’s coast as well as the city’s shift to a sub-tropical climate. The realistic proposal is meant to act as a guide for future development that is destined for the area with an emphasis on climate mitigation, public transportation, and public amenities for local residents, a growing workforce, and visitors from all over. New York is a city surrounded by water, and it cannot ignore the low level land at risk of future flooding. Current development along the city’s coasts. This project is a guide to living with water.
WATERLOO