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NYCHA Red Hook Houses
NYCHA Red Hook Houses
New York, NY, United States
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Other Projects by KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox)
NYCHA Red Hook Houses
New York, NY, United States
Type
STATUS
Under Construction
SIZE
1,000,000 +
The most vulnerable communities are often hardest hit by extreme weather, a fact demonstrated when Superstorm Sandy inundated the Red Hook Houses with floodwater in 2012. KPF saw FEMA’s Resiliency and Renewal program as an opportunity to humanize an impersonal urban plan and create places where people can connect.
Built on reclaimed marshland adjacent to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the 28 buildings of the Red Hook Houses are home to some 6,000 people. Even before Superstorm Sandy, the community was historically underserved and had endured years of deferred maintenance.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding was provided as part of the Resiliency and Renewal program in response to the inundation of 2012. With strict limits on how these funds could be spent, the design challenge was to find a way to make every dollar do double duty—to repair damage and protect against future flooding while also enhancing social resiliency and connectivity.
Linking climate and social resiliency measures is the foundation of this project. The community survived the devastating effects of the flooding through its social cohesion—neighbors helping each other as best they could. Our role as architects was to connect the community to resources and expertise that bring relief from vulnerability and improve the physical and social condition of the site. Work started with exercises to rebuild trust with the community and to understand how best to serve its needs through a series of focus groups, interviews, surveys, and community design workshops. Regular updates were given throughout the project.
Two new freestanding buildings for boilers and emergency generators are located at the extremities of the development, raised above established flood elevations. A community-led mural on the West Plant engages the residents as the main stakeholders of their environment, while the East Plant raises awareness of climate change and the need for this building through large windows into the equipment room, and accessibility for classroom field trips.
Across the 32-acre campus, 14 Utility Pods distribute heat and electricity. Designed as colorful lanterns, they contribute to nighttime illumination to provide an enhanced sense of security, their individual coloration helping users orient themselves within the otherwise disorienting landscape of undifferentiated brick buildings.
In the open courtyards, each defined by a cluster of four buildings, a Lily Pad system protects buildings and entrances from future flooding and provides social spaces and playgrounds. These stepped, landscaped terraces enhance social connectivity, replacing stairs and ramps to individual buildings with a raised communal area. Around the edges, low walls provide seating which, supplemented by passive barriers at entrances, also provide flood defences.
Residents from the Red Hook Houses West collaborated with Artolution, a local non-profit, to produce a 2,500-square-foot mural, representative of the waterfront neighborhood. The mural is painted on the wall of the West Plant, an above ground boiler system provided to improve flood resiliency.
Built on reclaimed marshland adjacent to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the 28 buildings of the Red Hook Houses are home to some 6,000 people. Even before Superstorm Sandy, the community was historically underserved and had endured years of deferred maintenance.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding was provided as part of the Resiliency and Renewal program in response to the inundation of 2012. With strict limits on how these funds could be spent, the design challenge was to find a way to make every dollar do double duty—to repair damage and protect against future flooding while also enhancing social resiliency and connectivity.
Linking climate and social resiliency measures is the foundation of this project. The community survived the devastating effects of the flooding through its social cohesion—neighbors helping each other as best they could. Our role as architects was to connect the community to resources and expertise that bring relief from vulnerability and improve the physical and social condition of the site. Work started with exercises to rebuild trust with the community and to understand how best to serve its needs through a series of focus groups, interviews, surveys, and community design workshops. Regular updates were given throughout the project.
Two new freestanding buildings for boilers and emergency generators are located at the extremities of the development, raised above established flood elevations. A community-led mural on the West Plant engages the residents as the main stakeholders of their environment, while the East Plant raises awareness of climate change and the need for this building through large windows into the equipment room, and accessibility for classroom field trips.
Across the 32-acre campus, 14 Utility Pods distribute heat and electricity. Designed as colorful lanterns, they contribute to nighttime illumination to provide an enhanced sense of security, their individual coloration helping users orient themselves within the otherwise disorienting landscape of undifferentiated brick buildings.
In the open courtyards, each defined by a cluster of four buildings, a Lily Pad system protects buildings and entrances from future flooding and provides social spaces and playgrounds. These stepped, landscaped terraces enhance social connectivity, replacing stairs and ramps to individual buildings with a raised communal area. Around the edges, low walls provide seating which, supplemented by passive barriers at entrances, also provide flood defences.
Residents from the Red Hook Houses West collaborated with Artolution, a local non-profit, to produce a 2,500-square-foot mural, representative of the waterfront neighborhood. The mural is painted on the wall of the West Plant, an above ground boiler system provided to improve flood resiliency.
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