Rising Currents Exhibit Opens at MoMA
Mar 25, 2010 2:02 pm
[caption id=“attachment_2974” align=“aligncenter” width=“468” caption=“The “Rising Currents” exhibit opened yesterday and runs through October 11, 2010. Map of “Rising Currents” project zones. (Image courtesy of MoMA).”]
[/caption] As we’ve mentioned here before, we’ve been following the Rising Currents project at MoMA and PS1 with great interest. Rising Currents is a program of MoMA and PS 1 that brings together 5 interdisciplinary teams to creatively tackle the challenge of climate change along the coastlines of New York Harbor. The teams have re-imagined the region’s coastline with “soft” infrastructure that works with, rather than against,the natural ecology of the harbor. Carter Craft, a waterfront planner, has written an interesting guide to the teams’ work. Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to bring rising sea levels, along with intensified storms. While no one is projecting permanent inundation for New York City, these forces are expected to cause more severe and more frequent flooding. As we plan a new park and new public open spaces for Governors Island with West 8, we are taking climate change into consideration. Flooding and storm surges pose a particular threat to trees and plants, because brackish (salty) harbor floodwaters have the potential to kill even the sturdiest of trees and other plants. One of the ways West 8’s design will address this danger is by making both subtle and dramatic changes in the topography of the parkland that lies in the projected 100-year flood in 2100, as identified by the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC). This ensures that the root levels of the Island’s new trees will sit above the flood zone. Another strategy for other parts of the open space, is to select plants that will thrive on our increasingly brackish groundwater. By using a mix of active and adaptive strategies, West 8 will ensure that trees survive to become the best specimens they can be and the park can be enjoyed by generations of visitors. This approach — creating new infrastructure and forms where necessary and appropriate, while working with nature in others — also underlies many of the teams’ proposed solutions. Some of the ideas may seem fanciful, but the strategies underlying them, as West 8’s approach shows, can be a useful way to ensure resilience in the face of a changing climate.