JAMES W. MARSH | SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY MASTER’S OF ARCHITECTURE THESIS | SPRING 2016
ABSORBENT RESILIENCY
CONTENTS 03 - THESIS STATEMENT 04 - EXISTING CONSIDERATIONS 07 - SITE RESEARCH 08 - SECTION OF FLOODING 10 - EXISTING SEWER DIAGRAM 11 - LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE CASE STUDIES
JAMES W. MARSH JMARSH4087@LIVE.COM (585) 610-5490
13 - FLOODING SECTORS 14 - LIVING SYSTEM DIAGRAM 15 - EROSIVE INSPIRATIONS 16 - URBAN PROTOTYPE KIT OF PARTS 18 - NEW TYPOLOGIES EMERGE 20 - SECTIONS DOWN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR 21 - EXISTING FABRIC vs. NEW URBAN PROTOTYPES 22 - TYPICAL PLANS OF EROSIVE BUILDING AND LANDSCAPE 23 - SECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE 24 - CONCLUSION 2
ABSORBENT RESILIENCY A NEW URBAN TYPOLOGY
In Red Hook, Brooklyn, excess water is a fact of life. Its close proximity to the coastline leaves it susceptible to flooding which acts as a catalyst for a slew of other problems such as sewer backups and drain overburdening on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. In 2013, Hurricane Sandy left Red Hook more than 85% submerged and current climate trends are suggesting that storms of this magnitude will not be isolated incidents in the city’s history. My thesis contends to present a new urban typology that can be plugged into existing city fabric to harvest and reuse excess flood waters thus creating a beneficial architectural relationship to the surrounding neighborhood. The architecture is aesthetically expressed with inspiration from naturally occurring erosive forms that are in a way “designed by water.” The erosive aesthetic sets up the project’s attitude towards water: embrace rather than isolate. By designing site and urban systems that embrace water at different scales and various levels of flooding, the project can be seen as a kit of parts that allows existing fabric to benefit from a new system of absorbent resiliency.
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Red Hook deserves a chance to become resilient in its own way. NYC COMPETITIONS
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was brought to my site while studying precedents that dealt with coastal conditions. Red Hook, Brooklyn was overlooked by major design competitions in New York City. This map shows a plan view of projects from the Rebuild By Design Competition. Red Hook was left out of the competition even though it will find itself almost completely underwater if another hurricane hits.
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3.4M HOMES IN NYC = 5000 HOMES = SINGLE RESIDENT = 2 RESIDENTS = 3 RESIDENTS = 4 RESIDENTS = 5+ RESIDENTS = SEVERLY RENT BURDENED = RENT BURDENED = NON-RENT BURDENED = OWNER OCCUPIED
HOUSING CRISIS
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he city’s existing housing stock is too low. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio set a goal for 200,000 new or renovated housing units across the five boroughs of the city in the next ten years. This diagram shows the existing housing stock in NYC and the additional 200K needed, 60% of which are renovations. This shows that the city has an attitude towards preserving existing urban fabrics while allowing new construction to ultimately meet its demands.
80K NEW HOMES
120K REUSE OF EXISTING STRUCTURES
URBAN SYSTEM
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ew York City lacks an urban scale resiliency system. An example of this is illustrated by Chicago Urban Lab in a project called Growing Water. The project has a series of linear parks that are set up as natural systems to inhale water from Lake Michigan and exhale filtered water back into the lake thus creating new urban spaces as well as improving environmental conditions.
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ECONOMIC AREAS HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES DRAINAGE PROBLEMS 100YR FLOOD PLAIN TOPOGRAPHY
A NEIGHBORHOOD UNDERWATER
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y studying the map of Red Hook, I found a number of unique conditions. One can see that a vast majority, over 85%, of the region found itself underwater during Hurricane Sandy in 2013 and the 100 yr flood plain was broken as shown by the red line. Red Hook is also considered a NYC “Empire Zone” which gives the neighborhood economic incentives in the form of tax breaks and refunds. The green areas are considered the main economic areas of Red Hook with the largest being a long economic corridor. When looking at a historic map of landforms in the area, the Southern end of the corridor also correlates with historic islands, denoted by large black dots, meaning it has the most stable land in terms of a potential site. These considerations helped me decide on the site of intervention. (The black rectangle)
EXISTING HOUSING ASSETS +2’ SEA LEVEL +4’ SEA LEVEL +6’ SEA LEVEL +8’ SEA LEVEL +10’ SEA LEVEL MUDFLATS HISTORIC ISLAND HISTORIC LANDFILLED BEACH HISTORIC OPEN WATER HISTORIC TIDAL MARSH WETLAND RECONSTRUCTION STUDY SITE HISTORIC LANDFILLED AREA TO RESEARCH EXISTING WETLAND 2013 HISTORIC RIPARIAN WETLAND
The neighborhood floods at a range of scales from once per century to monthly to weekly to even daily. FLOODING CONCERNS
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section through the economic corridor reveals a range of problems with flooding. Red Hook was not only affected by Hurricane Sandy, but also suffers from frequent flooding on a weekly or monthly scale. Mapped out are all the businesses established down the economic corridor and the most frequent flooding complaints. A darker shade of blue denotes deeper flooding.
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A network of smaller infrastructural sites is more resilient than a single major hub. BREAKING DOWN THE INFRASTRUCTURAL HUB
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fter discovering the extent of site flooding, I was led to study the sewer systems of Red Hook. In this drawing, the site is exploded into the air along with these paths that make up the main sewer lines. The largest runs parallel to the Southern shore. The two large circles are pumping stations. While the green one ran as it was supposed to, the red one broke down during Hurricane Sandy leaving its immediate area helpless in terms of fighting the flood. This inspired me to design a more resilient system for Red Hook where the main pump station is broken up into smaller pieces that are dispersed along the economic corridor. They make up an infrastructural network of mini pump stations that are less susceptible to complete failure than a large hub is. Each hub has pumps and filters serve adjacent buildings and sites as well as occasional generators that will become off-grid hubs to get the neighborhood back on its feet after a major storm takes out existing electrical infrastructure.
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LEARNING FROM CASE STUDIES
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n order to respond to my site’s flooding problems, I started to look at precedents that closely dealt with water. The Living Building Challenge promotes self-sufficiency in architecture through water reuse and solar electricity. I discovered some notable technologies to filter and reuse site water. At Bertschi Science Wing, a 7’x14’ green wall is able to serve 30 people per day. This includes toilets, sinks and even potable water. At Stewart Middle School, a constructed exterior wetland is able to harvest site water and filter use water including black water for reuse. At the Bullitt Center and adjacent McGilvra Place Park, there is no relationship between building and landscape. My thesis contends to challenge this lack of cooperation between structure and site. The Bullitt Center uses much more water than it harvests, and the Park is really only meant to be an urban space that helps control storm waters and drainage rather than harvesting water for reuse right next door.
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New Urban Prototypes
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ased on the Living Building case studies, I developed some urban prototypes that focus on water absorption. Whereas some of the Living Buildings are designed to gather the same amount of water that they use, my buildings are meant to absorb excess water that will serve the building, but also be slowly released after a storm happens to avoid sustained loads on existing drainage infrastructure. The prototypes shown here are the park, the low rise, the strip, and the tower.
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Stiching flood sectors together mitigates standing water along the economic corridor.
New Urban Prototypes
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sing the opportunities I saw in the site research and case studies, I’ve developed a scheme where my urban prototypes are infilled at empty sites along the economic corridor. Each block uses its building’s new mini infrastructures to absorb water within an area equal to 4 times the building or park footprint. This results in less water at grade during and post-storm as well as much more water being filtered before its slow release back into the site. Because the cisterns are meant to be productive during a Hurricane Sandy scenario, they also serve the economic corridor on the daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
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The site absorbs and holds excess water until the existing drainage infrastructure is unburdened.
A LIVING SYSTEM BETWEEN BUILDING AND LANDSCAPE
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then developed a sectional diagram to describe how the building and landscape operates together as a system. A flood or rain occurs and water seeps through the landscape. Indigenous flora that naturally grows in saturated environments acts as a natural filter removing particulates. This low tech initial filtering takes a burden off of the mechanical filters and provides quality green spaces for the urban environment. The water fills cisterns which are connected to the main filter room where water is mechanically cleaned and UV treatment removes bacteria to produce potable water for the building. This water is pumped up through the building to service sinks and showers. The grey water produced from those functions is used to flush toilets. The black water is now pumped to the roof where it trickles down a green wall system for an initial natural filtering through plant roots and eventually reaches the site’s constructed wetlands where it enters the cycle again.
EROSIVE INSPIRATION
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he formal language of the new buildings and parks is inspired by erosive forms in nature which reinforces the architecture’s attitude towards embracing water. Here are some early experimental digital models and 3D prints.
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Pocket 01 - Thoroughfare 800 SF
Pocket 02 - Green Wall Garden 450 SF
Pocket 03 - Entrance
Pocket 04 - Balconies
300 SF
400 SF
URBAN PROTOTYPE KIT OF PARTS
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hese forms make up an urban prototype kit of parts which includes a range of scales. Housing buildings, urban parks, building pockets, and an erosive structural system. The scales of building are the low rise, the strip and the tower. The parks can be surfaced with permeable pavers allowing a flexible program, or include landscaping to naturally filter water. The pockets include a thoroughfare, a green wall garden, a covered entrance, balconies for the housing units, and cisterns.
Permeable Pavers
Urban Green Space
1250 SF
1250 SF
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Pocket 05 - Cistern 250 SF
EROSIVE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM
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he erosive structural system is a series of columns that are triangulated with beams. The columns are incased with interior walls in a way that vertical chases allow the water reuse system to run through the building. A diagrid structural system is used to achieve the pockets’ complex curves.
Structural Skeleton
Structural Diagrid for Complex Curves
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SYSTEM OF URBAN PROTOTYPES AND INFRASTRUCTURAL NETWORK
NEW URBAN TYPOLOGIES
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or example this park on the corner harvests water but also becomes an urban sculpture or a landmark for a bus stop. A pocket on the exterior of a low rise typology takes the form of a public amphitheater for neighborhood events. Between two buildings is a covered walkway that uses permeable pavers to absorb excess water below grade. A pocket cutting through the building gives public a new avenue of access to a park that lies in the center of the block. A green wall garden at the top of a tower gives residents a view of the city and ocean while acting as a component of the water reuse system.
URBAN AMPHITHEATER
URBAN SCULPTURE
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COVERED WALKWAY
By combining the parts of the kit in different ways, new typologies emerge.
THOUROUGHFARE POCKET
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GREEN WALL GARDEN
A living system of resiliency across the site SECTIONS THROUGH ECONOMIC CORRIDOR
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aking a series of sections down the economic corridor reveals how the prototypes absorb site water through their designed landscapes and pump it though the buildings in order to serve grey water functions. The buildings are at different scales with different cistern capacities so as to be employable to any site beyond Red Hook that encounters flooding problems. The corridor becomes a network of stitched together landscapes that absorbs water throughout the site.
EXISTING FABRIC vs. NEW URBAN PROTOTYPES
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hese two birdseye views down the economic show how Red Hook’s existing fabric responds to a flood, and how my system of prototypes can absorb this excess water and release it back into the environment at a manageable rate. The urban prototypes give the neighborhood more immediate relief after a storm then slowly releases the water back to the site when existing drainage infrastructure is less overburdened.
STANDING WATER AFTER A STORM
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ABSORBENT SITES EXHALING EXCESS WATER SLOWLY
Building and Landscape work together to absorb and reuse excess water
LEVEL 5
LEVEL 4
A TYPICAL PLAN OF INTERIORS AND MECHANICAL POCHE
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hese are plans of a typical housing building. This one has 18 units. Note that the plan accounts for chases that encase the main structural columns. These are the main absorbent cores that serve the units and give ample space for the grey water system to carry water from the cisterns to the interior utilities.
LEVEL 3
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LEVEL 2
LIVING SYSTEM IN SECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
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section perspective reiterates the building system, but also explains how the structural system works in section and as an interior aesthetic of erosion. When a beam spans beneath a floor the ceiling below is draped around the beams causing a smoothed ceiling surface and producing a space that seems to be naturally hollowed out by water. The thickening of the ceiling to floor space also allows for horizontal mechanical space through the building.
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ABSORBENT RESILIENCY A NEW URBAN TYPOLOGY
In conclusion, through my new urban prototypes and infrastructural network designs, and the concept of absorbent resiliency, the neighborhood becomes like a living organism that inhales excess water for its own use and slowly releases water after a storm has passed so as to not overburden existing drainage infrastructure. A kit of parts designed with an erosive language can be implemented in different ways to produce a variety of urban conditions while providing a much needed function to the neighborhood. This also prevents massive system failure by breaking down an infrastructural hub into many small infrastructural pieces that form a network of resiliency across the site. Rather than walling or berming off the city from the sea for fear of the next worst natural disater, this new type of urban condition where building fuses with landscape can be employed at any site suffering from a range of flooding conditions from daily or weekly drain backups to hurricane aftermath because it welcomes excess water to assist in the city’s day-to-day functions.
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JAMES W. MARSH JMARSH4087@LIVE.COM (585) 610-5490