Between Water and Land: An Urban and Architectural Response to Climate Change in Red Hook, Brooklyn

Abstract

Climate change places urban coastlines at significant risk from rising sea levels and increasing storm intensity and frequency. This paper uses Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY as a case study to identify knowledge gaps in current climate resilience efforts across low-lying, post-industrial landscapes in coastal cities. Through an analysis of the short- and long-term effects of Superstorm Sandy (29 October 2012), current city planning efforts, and resulting architectural adaptations, this paper uncovers the shortcomings and possible maladaptive planning in Red Hook and New York City’s overall coastal resilience efforts. As a response to these findings, a new framing for future resilience efforts is proposed through speculative student design proposals and international case studies, applying a more dynamic understanding of climate resilience. These proposals envision a future climate-resilient, heterogeneous model for post-industrial coastal neighborhoods, transitioning to urban landscapes that embrace their shifting shorelines. This paper’s conclusion argues that effective coastal resilience requires strategies that work at multiple scales with shifting water–land boundaries rather than against them.

1. Introduction

1.1. Climate Change and Coastal Resilience

The rapid progression of climate change threatens coastal cities due to the increasing frequency of large-scale flooding events and rising sea levels ([1], p. 1264). These fundamental changes in climate and coastal landscapes pose large-scale economic, health, and urban infrastructure risks, especially in dense coastal urban areas. In New York City (NYC), for example, 780,000 residents and 122,100 buildings were within the 100-year floodplain in 2021, a number that has increased as large-scale development on coastlines continues ([2], p. 5). This paper seeks to analyze current and future urban coastal resilience efforts through the case study of an especially vulnerable neighborhood within the NYC floodplain: Red Hook, Brooklyn. Red Hook was profoundly impacted by Hurricane Sandy 13 years ago and is projected to continue to be at risk from rising sea levels within the next 80 years and beyond [3]. The city-wide initiatives and current architectural resilience efforts within Red Hook serve as the basis for analysis within this paper.

Coastal resilience initiatives for urban areas are varied in scale and scope, but often focus on addressing immediate storm surge flooding with less attention to the longer term challenges posed by sea level rise and increasing storm risk [4]. Short-term resilience by responding solely to storm surges can fail to adapt neighborhoods to the projected, increasingly variable shoreline, as long-established boundaries between water and land are altered due to climate change. Short-term perspectives also run the risk of maladaptation and inequitable outcomes, such as the loss of safe waterfront access for minority and low-income populations. Addressing both scales of climate risk—extreme storm surges and slow but inevitable sea level rise—will require new urban resilience strategies that allow for dynamic and multi-faceted architectural responses [5]. These resilience measures are most likely to succeed if they also foster the growth, empowerment, and cultural changes required from current and future coastal communities through this transition. The shift from static flood resilience to adaptive resilience methods will allow coastal communities to embrace future Anthropocene landscapes, improving quality of life and resilience in the liminal boundary between water and land [6].

1.2. Risks Posed by Changing Coastlines

Understanding the current risks faced by coastal communities is key to developing equitable architectural and urban resilience in response to both sea level rise and storm surge risk. Residents of low-lying, coastal urban neighborhoods face overlapping health, infrastructure, and economic threats as a result of projected changes in sea level and storm surge frequency. These threats are further compounded by a higher likelihood of communities in these areas suffering current and historical discriminatory practices of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and industrial/extractive land use [7,8].

Health risks caused by storm surges are well documented, particularly in the aftermath of disasters such as Hurricane Sandy and Katrina. Direct health risks such as drowning are immediate, but the aftermath of a storm can result in exposure to mold or contamination leading to long-term health issues. Power outages common in storm surges can harm residents relying on continual care that requires electricity while limiting access to heating or cooling, and emergency services can be rendered inaccessible due to flooding [9]. Rising sea levels, in contrast, create health issues on a longer timeframe—sanitation infrastructure can fail due to high tides overwhelming antiquated combined sewer (CSO) systems, leading to exposure to untreated sewage. Repeated nuisance flooding caused by rising tidal levels can affect reliable access to transportation and housing, which can contribute to, or exacerbate, existing mental health issues [9].

At the urban scale, coastal flooding and rising sea levels can have compounding effects on infrastructure systems, such as port trading, with large economic ramifications for a city or region ([1], pp. 2165–2171. Coastal infrastructure is often entangled with other urban infrastructure systems, causing one failure (such as the power grid failure in NYC during Hurricane Sandy) to extend to other systems. This can affect systems of communication, transportation, food supply, and healthcare [10]. These varied failures are harder to predict, expanding vulnerability to residents outside of directly threatened coastal areas.

Real estate investment trends continue to exacerbate projected coastal risk. While the likelihood of storms and SLR (sea level rise) increases, the market property value has also consistently risen in Red Hook and other urban coastal areas, which is surprising given the increasing vulnerability of this zone. In NYC, coastal real estate was estimated to grow by USD 176 billion—over 44%—in the 13 years after Hurricane Sandy. Rising sea levels could potentially put over USD 242 billion in real estate value in NYC at risk [11].

These economic concerns are increased by a burgeoning insurance crisis and a decline in property value that is beginning to emerge in coastal states like Florida, as insurance companies raise their rates rapidly to cover increasing claims from year to year [12]. Considering NYC’s projected coastal investments, this crisis is likely to affect many coastal communities across the country [12]. Three future insurance/flooding scenarios explored in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ article Insurance and Climate Risks state that sustainable physical adaptation (architectural adaptations, storm surge barriers, nature-based solutions) and resilience efforts in coastal areas could avoid the risk of displacement or the catastrophic economic consequences of large-scale sudden flood events [12].

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Why Red Hook?

Within the coastal hazard zone of New York City, rising sea levels and storm surges threaten working waterfronts and industrial areas due to their proximity to the water’s edge and their history of being constructed on low-lying landfill. Rapid industrialization, combined with past and present discriminatory policies, has seen many of these areas developed, abandoned, and now occupied by some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. The link between race, low income, and environmental justice issues is well documented [8,13]. The neighborhood of Red Hook is a case study applicable to many coastal cities, as it contains both the current and historical challenges faced by many coastal, post-industrial communities across the US.

As far back in NYC’s history as the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811, it was standard to undervalue the ecological/water management benefits of salt marshes in favor of landfilling these spaces to create easy boat access, first for trade, then for industrial uses. This is exemplified by the Commissioner’s Remarks accompanying the Plan of 1811: “…The place selected for this purpose is a salt marsh and, from that circumstance, of inferior price…than other soil. The matter dug from a large canal through the middle, for the admission of market-boats, will give a due elevation and solidity to the sides” [14]. As happened in the flood-prone lower east side of Manhattan, Red Hook was landfilled and changed dramatically, contributing significantly to its vulnerability today (Figure 1).

These low-lying areas are the first to feel the effects of climate change and often experience the impacts of flooding and sea level rise before other urban areas. Due to the heightened vulnerability of both residents and resources within these areas, it is essential to address these landscapes first and foremost when developing future architectural and urban interventions in response to a rapidly changing climate [7]. Red Hook’s current ongoing recovery and resilience efforts from Superstorm Sandy’s impacts over the last 13 years provide a unique opportunity to analyze the success and shortcomings of in-progress and planned coastal resilience efforts after this vulnerability was tested.

The short-term devastation of Hurricane Sandy was immediately evident—USD 19 billion in damages, 43 deaths, and thousands of displacements were calculated across NYC. After the storm surge, much of the damage was caused by the rippling effects of energy failures in coastal areas [11]. A substantial portion of residents in Red Hook had no electricity, running water, or heat for 2–3 weeks after the storm surge hit, with many of these residents (around 6000) residing in one of the largest Public Housing projects in Brooklyn—the Red Hook Houses. Hospitals and critical infrastructure also flooded, causing local residents to act as first responders to the crisis in the first days after the flood event occurred [16].

The Red Hook Houses are still under reconstruction 13 years later, having been plagued by delays [17]. As of 2020, many of the projects on the Sandy funding tracker are still years from completion [11].

2.2. Resilience in Red Hook Today

In the 13 years since Hurricane Sandy, city initiatives and in-progress resilience projects have begun to reshape Red Hook—allowing architects and urban planners the opportunity to better understand the benefits and limitations of current urban- and architectural-scale resiliency efforts. These initiatives in the built environment can be analyzed at two scales—the city (urban planning, zoning ordinances, design guidelines), and the neighborhood (built architectural interventions, including currently in-construction resilient adaptations to existing buildings).

3. Results

3.1. The City

Hurricane Sandy was the impetus for many of NYC’s coastal resilience efforts that are occurring in Red Hook to this day. The city-led plans range from architectural design guidelines to multi-billion-dollar, harbor-wide shoreline resiliency efforts from the US Army Corps of Engineers. These initiatives have created opportunities for dramatic changes in the built environment, many of which are being implemented in current architectural planning. The Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines (CRDG), first issued in 2017, govern the building-scale of city initiatives, incorporating future climate projections into architectural design within at-risk areas ([18], p. 5). These guidelines reference the architectural concerns being considered in coastal resilience: determining design based on the useful life of a building, managing uncertainty through adaptable design, and beginning to address sea level rise through future projections. Dry vs. wet floodproofing, for example, is determined through a consideration of building programs and flood vulnerability together [18].

Both the Zoning for Coastal Flood Resilience updates (ZCFR 2021) and the City of Yes Carbon Neutrality document (2025) approach the concept of resilience through expanding zoning regulations, allowing the CRDG flood resilience measures to apply to more of the built environment within the city’s coastal area. ZCFR expands the area in which resilience efforts can occur from the 100-year floodplain to the 500-year floodplain, in recognition of the higher frequency of storms and sea level rise (projected to 2050). It also expands flood resilience to building types beyond single family homes [2]. City of Yes, in contrast, is emissions focused, expanding the allowances for rooftop solar, insulation, and building envelope upgrades. It addresses water management by allowing rooftop greenhouses, permeable paving, and rain garden prototypes as bioswales [19].

The largest scale of coastal resilience project cover is demonstrated in the Harbor Area Tributary Study (HATS) by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The currently selected version of their flood resilience project is estimated to cost USD 50 billion, and impacts the entire coastline of NYC and New Jersey, enveloping it in various flood and storm surge barriers such as levees and floodwalls [20]. The plan references extensive ecological studies and maps out projected sea level rise, but severely limits access to waterfronts across the entire city.

3.2. The Neighborhood

The thoughtful application of city initiatives at the architectural scale within Red Hook projects reveals another essential aspect of resilient design less visible at the city planning scale—the support and development of local networks of trust and community organization. When Hurricane Sandy struck Red Hook, community members and local organizations responded to the crisis well before government or city aid was able to reach areas most affected by the storm. This emphasizes that developing resilience amidst local residents can be of great benefit alongside bolstering physical architectural resilience [16]. Exceptional examples of coastal architecture in Red Hook have addressed community resilience through sensitive and dynamic implementations of storm surge adaptations with a focus on local needs. These projects include the Red Hook Houses adaptation by the architecture firm KPF and the Red Hook Library adaptation by the firm LEVENBETTS.

The LEVENBETTS adaptation of the Red Hook Library demonstrates an exceptional implementation of current city guidelines within an essential building to the Red Hook community. Libraries operate as anchors of community development and resilience in NYC—serving as educational centers, access to computers and the internet, cooling centers, and community meeting spaces. The original Red Hook Library embodied this before Sandy, evidenced by the measures taken to resume library services immediately after the original building was flooded [21]. However, the library’s architectural design hindered community access—low ceilings, few windows, little outdoor seating, and visually inaccessible entrances made the building unapproachable—a factor that the community actively compensated for through self-run digital and in-person outreach programs (D.Leven, personal communication, 8 February 2025).

LEVENBETTS’ adaptation of the library applies resiliency methods found in the ZCFR and the CRDG (Figure 2) as an opportunity to improve local resilience through community-focused architectural design decisions.

Features mandated by the city’s CRDG often offer additional benefits, improving both physical and community resilience contemporaneously. The 3.5′ dry flood proofing walls prescribed by code lift the building from the surrounding streetscape, making it more visually present to the public. The incorporated ramp and stairs are surrounded by accessible planted landscaping that provides pleasant urban greenery as well as acting as a bioswale during flood events. The raising of mechanical systems required by code (Figure 3) adds 14% more floor space that is given to a community room facing the street through glass facades—allowing passers-by to understand the active use of the building by neighborhood residents.

Perhaps the most noticeable resilience measure applied to the project, however, results from an added 8″ thick concrete floor slab due to storm surge hydrostatic pressure concerns. This change would have reduced the ceiling height to uncomfortable levels, leading LEVENBETTS to raise the original roof to a height of approximately 15 ft (Figure 4 and Figure 5) resulting in a significantly improved civic space.

The raising of the Red Hook Library roof enabled by flood resilience measures improves the building features that allow the greater use of the space—improving community resilience directly. Through the raised ceiling, the new Red Hook Library receives more light and air than before, opens itself to the street, and engages the sidewalk through glass partitions. These design decisions make for a more pleasant, comfortable space to house some of the library’s most essential community functions. This design ethos extends outside to the partnering landscape architecture firm SCAPE’s bioswale landscape design, which incorporates seating, an event space, and an outdoor classroom, in addition to its food resilience properties (Figure 6).

The entrance of the building is moved to the corner through this new design, making it visually accessible to pedestrians on both Wolcott Street and Dwight Street. The porous, dynamic masonry facade that appears to float entices visitors to walk in (Figure 7).

The redesign of the Red Hook Library demonstrates the potential of improving the quality of existing spaces while adding resiliency in response to changing conditions.

This potential is also evidenced in KPF’s Red Hook Houses resilience proposal. Similarly to LEVENBETTS’ Red Hook Library, KPF’s resilience measures are prescribed by city planning initiatives, including raised mechanical systems, barriers at projected flood heights, and the provision of safe, elevated areas for residents to gather after flood events. These measures are taken on a much larger scale than the library—distributed at an almost urban planning scale across the Red Hook Houses Campus (Figure 8).

The design strategies proposed by KPF leverage these changes to create improved living conditions for Red Hook Houses residents beyond the resilience offered by storm surge protection. The “utility pods”, which act as raised mechanical systems for heating and cooling resident towers, are illuminated and act as wayfinding objects throughout the campus. The raised landscape “lily pads” provide a space above the floodplain while also creating a distinct separation between the Red Hook Houses courtyards and the streetscape. Most impressively, KPF decentralizes the generation of electricity in Red Hook through the provision of two new steam-powered stations integrated into the Red Hook Houses campus. One of the power generating stations, located on the east end of the campus, exposes its internal mechanical systems through a transparent façade. The building is designed to be taller than the surrounding houses in the campus, making the Red Hook Houses’ systems of resilience an esthetic, cultural marker for the neighborhood, and integrating a culture of resilient design and energy production into the forefront of the lived experience in Red Hook [24] (Figure 9).

Both projects demonstrate an understanding and appreciation for Red Hook as a neighborhood beyond its storm surge risk, and expand city-led initiatives to encompass neighborhood-scale resilience and engage with resilient local networks of trust. These case studies act as a starting point for a new typology of architectural and urban resilience to take shape—one that incorporates a focus on local resilience into a more dynamic urban strategy inspired by the projected liminality of coastal landscapes.

4. Discussion

4.1. Where Do We Go from Here?—Resilient Regrowth Across a Changing Coastline

Despite the laudable architectural resilience efforts achieved in several Red Hook resilience projects, their limited engagement with future coastal conditions stems largely from shortcomings within NYC city initiatives. These city-based initiatives restrict resilient building to storm surge flooding and lot-based resilience efforts, inherited through historical methods of coastal development. Beyond the physical flood barriers proposed in HATS (Figure 10), initiatives have limited engagement with sea level rise projections 75+ years in the future.

At their worst, the barrier structures proposed through the HATS 3B proposal enable a continued maladaptive approach to coastal resilience—enabling “building as usual” behind coastal barriers until hardened coastlines succumb to inevitable rising waters. In addition, planning initiatives often fail to reference the impact on community systems of resilience at the human scale emphasized in recent architectural resilience projects, including the effects of limiting residents’ access to the waterfront. However, the projected change in coastal landscapes offers opportunities for new urban and architectural design typologies to emerge that address these knowledge gaps. In response to rapidly changing waterfronts, architectural and urban resilience efforts can be designed as part of a fundamentally different coastline that is impacted by climate change.

The built environment that emerges from this more dynamic framing embraces Red Hook’s historically shifting landform. It will require designers to consider coastal landscapes and buildings not as static objects but as temporary arrangements of materials and energy, including their embodied carbon, community investment, and possible future scenarios before and after those materials are assembled. This transition allows buildings to actively participate in the processes of strengthening coastal resilience through their designed rearrangement, mining, disassembly, and managed rewilding (Figure 11). Reframing coastal resilience in this way changes the design challenge within urban coastlines from “how can a building withstand the next storm?”, to “what is the best transition for this landscape to undergo in the foreseeable future?” Any site or building within coastal hazard zones can undergo all of these states of resilience over time, and each transition can yield benefits for the landscape and community it serves (Figure 12).

Recognizing that coastal landscapes have always embodied changing shorelines through shifting ecologies over time, this paper refers to future coastal resilience efforts emerging from this framing with the active term “Regrowth”. Regrowth in this context refers to the active growth of community and resilience, made possible through design that embraces climate projections as an opportunity to redefine coastal urban landscapes. As opposed to managed retreat or degrowth initiatives, Regrowth proposes a resilient urban coastline that introduces new industries, creates economies, and engages processes that increase the resilience of resident communities through their climate transitions.

Regrowth is presented in this paper through four active architectural transition methods—adaptation and reuse, urban mining, selective new construction, and nature-based systems of resilience. Though varied, these responses are by no means restrictive—a key concept within resilient Regrowth is heterogeneity across coastlines. Heterogeneous resilience ensures that proposed resilience efforts are unique to each neighborhood and site, avoiding the potentially maladaptive prescriptive zoning practices the city has relied on for development in the past [7]. The following section of this paper combines student work, local and international case studies, and emerging urban theories to envision a Red Hook that dynamically transitions through the lens of Regrowth.

4.2. Regrowth Through Adaptive Reuse—Banking Embodied Carbon and Energy

While NYC’s City of Yes initiative addresses decarbonization, its efforts are focused largely on operational carbon through initiatives such as solar, wind, and zoning for extended energy storage allowances [19]. Embodied carbon, representing emissions used to manufacture and assemble components of buildings, accounts for 13% of emissions globally [25]. This CO₂ equivalent is banked, or “in use”, for as long as a building is operational—making the adaptive reuse of already existing buildings a key tool in reducing emissions on an urban scale. As building systems are increasingly more efficient, the preservation of embodied carbon represents a growing knowledge gap in city decarbonization efforts. Non-profit institutions such as NYCEDC have begun to address this issue—creating guides for circular construction methods, and recommending adaptive reuse as the best way to preserve already existing investments of embodied carbon [25]. As much of the coastal building stock in Red Hook is high in embodied carbon, the size and scope of its industrial buildings make them an ideal candidate for adaptive reuse. In addition, digging new foundations in Red Hook is challenging due to soil contamination, making industrial buildings with higher dead load tolerances attractive candidates for this form of resilience (D.Leven, personal communication, 8 February 2025.

Through the lens of Regrowth, adaptive reuse takes on the additional benefit of reintegrating iconic abandoned buildings into the Red Hook neighborhood. The Red Hook Grain Terminal, though abandoned, is one such building. As a defining element of Red Hook’s skyline and cultural image, the terminal is a compelling opportunity for adaptive reuse. In 2002, the Zaccho Dance Theater performed across its facade, and the building has hosted music videos by artists such as Lorde throughout its lifetime [26]. Student work on the adaptive reuse of the already wet-floodproofed building (a benefit of its previous function as a coastal Grain Terminal) shows a collection of different options for the reintegration of this building into the neighborhood that accommodate rising sea levels.

Students in Professor Martina Kohler’s junior year of BFA Architectural Design at Parsons School of Design were challenged to rethink what it means to occupy and design a future around water and coastal resiliency through inventive spatial strategies and programming visions for the Grain Terminal. The Grain Silos were reimagined as a new community hub of Red Hook and the massive building envisioned as a row of independent entities. Through this design approach, each new slice of the building now offers individual programming that can address the lack of services in the Red Hook community (Figure 13).

Health clinics, hydroponic farming to expand offerings of fresh local produce, an expansion of an existing community center (RETI) as a job training site for Red Hook’s youth, a pilot middle school, biomaterial startups with job training, and the like were envisioned as programs for the adaptive reuse (Figure 13 and Figure 14).

Red Hook’s Grain Terminal offers the opportunity to celebrate resilience and introduce radical new ways of living with water—though abandoned now, it can be reactivated to ensure the carbon invested in its construction remains in use in the neighborhood.

4.3. Regrowth Through Urban Mining

Not all buildings within low-lying coastal areas are suitable for adaptive reuse, despite containing substantial stores of embodied carbon. Through urban mining, coastal areas could transition the built environment into a producer of usable resources, new economies, and skilled labor in coastal communities. Where buildings cannot be adapted or reused within threatened zones, building materials with embodied carbon can be salvaged through this process. Within the Regrowth framework, the dismantling of existing structures can also create educational and training opportunities for local residents, enabling them to be at the forefront of a growing sustainable industry. Mined material can be repurposed for new construction within coastal areas, or could be used to further reduce the embodied carbon cost of construction outside coastal hazard zones. Projected sea level rise reveals the growing potential for urban mining across New York City’s coastline, as more buildings are determined to no longer be occupiable due to frequent tidal flooding. Systems can be put in place now for the growing need for an urban mining industry, addressing material data, techniques, storage, and the distribution of materials.

Several existing European “material hunting” networks provide a starting framework for the kind of network needed to sustain urban mining as a viable resilience strategy within low-lying urban environments. The digital Urban Mine Platform, an initiative mapping all potentially mineable raw materials within the EU based on scrapped vehicles, batteries, and other electronics, shows a potential framework for cataloging large material data in a publicly accessible forum [27]. Madaster, a platform supporting circular construction, offers a service that assesses the materials within existing buildings using BIM software 2025, cataloging embodied carbon and salvageability through custom-made “material passports” [28]. These frameworks combined show great potential for cataloging Red Hook and NYC’s existing at-risk building stock. A similar system to the Madaster material passports could produce a database for all materials to be mined across NYC’s shoreline as each building reaches the end of its lifecycle and is marked for mining. This digital database could be incorporated into larger city-wide interactive mapping tools such as ZoLa (Zoning and Land Use Map). Publicly available data on material mining could then work in concert with small-scale urban mining centers currently in operation in Europe, such as the House of Reuse in Nancy, France, acting as prototypes for larger urban mining centers that would store, catalog, and resell materials mined out of buildings.

At an urban scale, the ongoing project Varvsstaden AB in Malmö, Sweden, shows promise in its post-industrial site remediation through adaptively reusing existing buildings and mining non-adaptable ones for new construction. Varvsstaden is a historically industrial area that is undergoing major construction to reincorporate it into Malmö’s downtown. Architects working on the larger project are aiming to reuse 80% of the materials currently on site, saving an estimated 30,000 tons of CO₂-equivalent emissions [29]. The project mirrors many aspects of Red Hook’s own built environment and demonstrates the scale at which urban mining can be reincorporated into local construction efforts within urban coastal areas.

4.4. Nature-Based Regrowth

As active resilience measures cannot be applied to every lot in Red Hook, sea level projections predict that water will begin to reoccupy areas which were once a portion of Red Hook’s original marshlands and bay (Figure 15).

This porous landscape will likely be made up of deconstructed and abandoned lots as they return to a softer shoreline and are flooded on a regular basis. Rewilding of these areas will occur over time without human involvement, but human-led Regrowth initiatives could reframe this transition in the landscape as an opportunity to grow new industries, increase storm surge resilience, and provide amenities to local residents over time through active community participation.

Though vulnerable to storm surge, an early framework for the economic- and community-focused aspects of resilient Regrowth can already be found in Red Hook’s community-led urban farming efforts. The Red Hook Farms, part of the Red Hook Initiative, heads two farm sites—the Red Hook Houses Farm (partnering with the non-profit Green City Force) and the Columbia Street Farm. Both farms are active today, producing over 20,000 pounds of food a year for the neighborhood, while training residents of all ages in skills applicable to a wide variety of sustainable careers [30]. A return on investment study on City Green Force by the Americorps office of research and evaluation demonstrates strong medium- and long-term financial returns on investment in these programs, largely based on the educational benefits and increased financial earnings for participants and the community—a less tangible, but essential, form of resilience [31]. The Red Hook Farms also serve as an early precedent for partially “regrowing” non-resilient lots in Red Hook—the Columbia Street Farm occupies the site of a previously non-permeable concrete baseball field, allowing a porous landscape to replace one previously contributing to pluvial and storm surge flooding [30]. Urban farm precedents demonstrate the potential of combining local community skill training and nature-based solutions as a resilience method—engaging resilience to climate change through training community members in valuable skills as well as changing the physical landscape to better accommodate projected climate challenges.

Though more porous than a concrete baseball field, Red Hook’s urban farms are nevertheless less resilient to complications brought on by projected sea level rise in post-industrial neighborhoods. Red Hook’s industrial zoning has created high concentrations of heavy metals, sewage, and other pollutants in its waterways that linger to this day. The neighborhood currently contains one major oil storage facility and two toxic release inventory sites, and its eastmost coastal waters—the Gowanus canal and bay—are classified as superfund class 2 sites1 due to past and current industrial practices [32]. The Gowanus canal is a particularly pressing issue where sea level rise is concerned, as it could contribute to higher levels of toxins in soil as tidal movement threatens to flood landscapes more regularly (as found in Red Hook soil after Hurricane Sandy [33]).

Nature-based Regrowth as a means of waterway remediation and storm surge shows the potential to address these issues while incorporating the community benefits developed by existing farming programs. These frameworks are combined in the student work produced in Professor Joel Towers and Professor Evan Shieh’s studio at Parsons School of Design by David Maria d’Olimpio and Stan Walden—Resilient Remediation (Figure 16).

The Project integrates water remediation with resilient architectural interventions. The Red Hook Grain Silo is adaptively reused as a phytoremediation-based water treatment plant, cooling center, and art space, while the abandoned lot nearby is reclaimed by rising tides and hosts a seaweed farm and production facility, designed for disassembly.

Located on RETI’s original site in Red Hook, the project seeks to address rising tides, water quality, and community resilience through sugar kelp farming, wetland restoration, and phytoremediation education on Red Hook’s abandoned industrial waterfronts.

Restored wetlands are ideal candidates for Red Hook’s nature-based Regrowth due to their existence in the landscape before urbanization, their ability to minimize storm surge damages [34], and their potential for phytoremediation [35]. These landscapes also have the potential to restore public access to abandoned industrial waterfronts dotting Red Hook’s coastline through managed parks. The student project engages with this through both constructed and engineered wetlands—treating combined sewer overflow in the Grain Silo building and treating street runoff through a park wetland once occupied by parking space for delivery vehicles. Maintenance of this landscape would be labor-intensive, opening opportunities for skill building for community members that can be applied as nature-based resilience efforts continue to grow along the urban coastline.

Shallow-water kelp farming has also shown promise in remediating water in post-industrial waterfronts such as the mouth of the Bronx River [36] while providing community members opportunities to develop professional experience in a growing field. Initiatives such as The Newtown Creek Alliance and the RETI Barge have already begun growing sugar kelp in their respective superfund sites, proving the organisms’ resilience to toxic waters while extracting heavy metals and other toxins (Figure 17). The materials are currently used as biofuel in small quantities on the RETI Barge [37].

Within the student work, the seeding, cultivation, drying of sugar kelp, and production of seaweed products take on an educational role, with audience viewing platforms incorporated into the larger wetland park landscape (Figure 18).

The engagement between the public and community members learning harvesting and drying techniques lends itself to skill training in similar programmatic frameworks as urban farming and teaches skills applicable to future kelp farms within the New York and Jersey Harbor Estuary. Furthermore, the remediation of waterways as a result of projects such as this one could improve coastal soil resilience as well as local health during SLR and storm surges.

4.5. New Construction—Designing for Disassembly (DfD)

Due to the risks posed both by sea level rise and storm surges within low-lying areas, the program and function of new construction should be carefully considered to avoid investing resources into non-resilient, short-lifespan projects. Programmatic concerns in coastal building begin to be referenced in the ZFCR city document, which forbids building nursing homes inside the projected 500-year floodplain due to the vulnerability of elderly residents in flood risk areas ([2], p. 23). Considering sea level rise through a framework of Regrowth goes further, incorporating embodied carbon concerns into determining the value of building on land destined to return to a tidal state. Resilience programs such as nature-based solutions and urban mining operations will, however, require, at minimum, the temporary construction of new architecture within these at-risk areas. These structures are a key factor in improving neighborhood coastal resilience by supporting initiatives while, at the same time, being able to adapt to rising sea levels. A promising construction typology that allows for this is designing for disassembly or deconstruction.

Modern day architectural design often relies on joinery that is difficult to deconstruct without destroying the base materials. As a result, demolition processes generate hundreds of million tons of waste annually [38]. Designing for disassembly as a coastal resilience method engages with the practices of Regrowth through recognizing a physical building as a temporary assembly of its components, designing with a strategy for disassembly to ease urban mining at the end of the building’s life cycle. This benefits embodied carbon efforts and allows a structure to be built in at-risk areas with the possibility for adaptability as sea level rise encroaches on the land the structure occupies.

An excellent case study using this building typology is the Braunstein Taphouse and community center, designed by Adept architects, in Koge, Denmark (Figure 19). The building is currently located on a harbor quay that could be affected by future city climate adaptations, making disassembly a key aspect of its design. “Non-mixed” materials2 and mechanical joints are used in its construction, visible in Figure 20, including click-joint, one-polymer polycarbonate, and CO₂-neutral Accoya wood for facade and interior details. The building is designed to be completely disassembled for its components to be used for other projects or to be reassembled in another location if the quay is removed due to the city’s sea level rise adaptation strategy (A. Lonka, personal communication, 3 March 2025). Though the entire project is mobile through disassembly, embodied carbon is also kept low through careful choice of materials [39].

Centering the community aspect of Regrowth within a DfD typology is supported by another case study present in Red Hook today—the RETI Barge. The RETI Barge is an example of the temporary/mobile structures needed within coastal areas for community resilience at a neighborhood scale. RETI, located on a reused barge within the Gowanus bay, operated as an open-air community-focused education and research center—housing experimental trials such as floating wetlands and training programs such as solar panel operation and installation. The Roof RETI Program, targeted towards NYCHA and low-income housing residents, engaged the community through training for construction certifications and solar sales experience, building skills in expanding industries within Red Hook. In addition, the training was supported by active solar panel installation within the neighborhood itself, improving surrounding local resilience through a decentralization of the power grid.

Combining both case studies clarifies DfD’s role in coastal resilience through Regrowth in Red Hook. DfD allows cities to build essential resources and programs within areas that will flood in the future while limiting the loss of embodied carbon within those structures. This typology eases urban mining through universal joinery methods, modular construction, and non-mixed materials, making structures easily relocatable or becoming adaptive reuse components for existing buildings.

5. Conclusions

Reflecting on the ideals and transformative potential of modernism in his present moment, Marshall Berman wrote in 1982 that ““To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said”, ‘all that’s solid melts into air’.” [40]. As global climate change rapidly alters landscapes across the globe, a similar challenge towards radical transformation is presented to cities and their coastlines. As the ramifications of human impacts on the planet continue to accelerate, cities will need to change at a pace recognizable within human lifespans. This fundamentally alters the concept of resilience within the built environment. Instead of building only to withstand the effects of climate change, cities must increasingly adapt to become dynamic and responsive to the environment they are embedded within. This is especially true of coastlines—where sea level rise poses compounding risks for vulnerable populations.

Analysis of current resilience efforts demonstrates that city initiatives and resulting architectural resilience projects lack a cohesive approach for engaging with the dynamic aspects of future urban coastlines. Three scales of coastal resilience work emerge from this analysis:

• The Human: Social and community resilience networks responding to climate change must be built up at the same pace as physical resilience efforts to ease the transition into a more dynamic coastal landscape.

  a.

  As the coastal landscape becomes less “solid”, the ecology of urban social networks of trust and cooperation emerge as even more important factors to climate resilience in both the short and long term. These must be supported to bolster their ability to react and adapt to projected changes.

• The Building: Climate change has altered the way architectural design will be evaluated. Buildings can no longer be considered static objects, but are instead temporary repositories/collections of energy and materials that are designed to change over time.

  a.

  Resilience efforts at the architectural scale cannot be motivated solely by a building withstanding the storm surge threat, but must equally account for future changes in form and program motivated by projected sea level rise and resulting changes in the urban fabric.

• The City: Comprehensive urban resilience requires the ambition and capacity to reimagine urban development and design across the coastal hazard zone. Cities must conceive of their coastal neighborhoods as fundamentally different landscapes than they are now—adaptable to their future shifting conditions and coastlines.

  a.

  Coastal resilience must adapt alongside projected changes in sea level rise, framing resilience as a transition from a static to a dynamic relationship with the coastal landscape.

Taken together, these scales frame the challenge of designing a built environment that adequately responds to the challenges of the Anthropocene. The Regrowth framework provides a way to conceive of this difficult transition through the opportunities for innovation it presents. The architectural typologies that emerge are varied, unfamiliar, and heterogeneous. They provoke changes in our calcified cultural concepts of property, zoning, landscapes, buildings, and economies—systems that do not serve future urban coastlines in their current state. Actively participating in this shift—a shift towards reimagining a coastline that is resilient to change by undergoing change itself—is one of architecture’s roles in building resilience to climate change.