Shifting Sands: A Review of Catherine Seavitt Nordenson’s Fuller Lecture

 Catherine Seavitt-Nordenson

University of Oregon’s Fuller Lecture

1/11/16

Superstorm Sandy devastated the southern shores of Long Island, Brooklyn, and Queens. The neighborhoods and communities around Jamaica Bay were hard hit, especially exposed communities like Rockaway Beach and Breezy Point. Sandy forced New Yorkers to evaluate their level of preparedness to handle future Superstorms, and think about infrastructure improvements. Catherine Seavitt Nordenson’s MOMA exhibition Rising Currents began that conversation in 2008, well before sea level rise and Superstorms were part of New York City’s conscious. This exhibition began the line of inquiry that Seavitt Nordenson has followed to Jamaica Bay, an area composed of close knit blue collar neighborhoods, small enclaves of wealthy individuals, a National Recreation Area, and John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Army Corps of Engineers also manages large restoration projects in Jamaica Bay, and Seavitt Nordenson and her team interfaced and worked with all of the above parties in their design proposals.

One of four teams in a larger Structures of Coastal Resilience initiative spanning much of the East Coast, Seavitt Nordenson and her team began by eschewing traditional ‘hard’ infrastructure for ‘soft’ green spaces that could be used to absorb the powerful energies of a hurricane or Nor’Easter. The Army Corps of Engineers had been managing a handful of large and expensive restoration projects in Jamaica Bay, but Seavitt Nordenson and her team wanted to go beyond the project based mentality of the Corps and treat Jamaica Bay as a unified system. While Seavitt Nordenson and her team worked under the title of ‘Researchers,’ they are excited that agencies in the area have been receptive to these new ideas, and hope for potential implementation in the future.

Jamaica Bay was focused on because its level of risk according to the Army Corps. Their Weighted Risk Assessment pulled together three components: environmental, infrastructural, and social, weighted at 10%, 80% and 10% respectively. The Corp’s emphasis on infrastructural safety and the proximity of a major highway and JFK airport meant Jamaica Bay would receive assistance. Seavitt Nordenson altered the Corps’ weighted averages and used US Census data to further explore the social vulnerabilities of the area. She and her team discovered that large portions of the surrounding population had an elderly person living alone, a child younger than 5 years old, or a household that didn’t speak english as a first language. These were all groups who were most at risk should another Superstorm hit, and added more impetus behind the Shifting Sands work.

Seavitt Nordenson’s first proposed intervention was to create an Overwash Plain next to Jacob Riis Park on Rockaway Beach to provide an additional outlet for storm surge water to leave the Bay. With only a small channel for water to enter and leave, flood water can get trapped in the bay for numerous tide cycles, leaving coastal communities inundated long after the storm has passed. The Overwash Plain also encourages more cycling of water and sediment through the Bay, improving the health and quality of the system.

Their second proposal was call Verge Enhancement. Robert Moses’ Belt Parkway, constructed in the 1930s, rings around the outer edge of Jamaica Bay and its communities. Jumping over small canals and channels, bridge piers and other sections of the Belt Parkway sit above the floodplain. Taking advantage of the existing infrastructure, Seavitt Norenson and her team designed a long flood barrier meant to protect communities along the shore from waves. The Verge Enhancement provides edge protection for residents right outside their doorstep, not with a flood gate miles away at the Bay’s inlet.

The final and most ambitious project was the Atoll Terrace / Island Motor. Using computer and physical models, Seavitt Nordenson and her team analyzed sediment flows through Jamaica Bay to begin to think about how a marsh could create itself. Using the Atoll form, an open island or open ring of land, Seavitt Nordenson attempted to create eddies for tidal water to momentarily catch and slow tidal water moving through the Bay. When caught in these eddies, water will slow enough for sediment to deposit along the Atoll’s banks, slowly letting the islands grow. These Atoll forms would take advantage of high points in the existing bathymetry, further reducing the amount of material needed.

Should they be built, these Island Motors will become physical parametric models, relying on the components of water speed and direction, sediment load, and vegetation growth among others. The parameters for the Atoll forms and existing knowledge of tidal currents give a solid understanding of what might happen to them, but their end result will ultimately be a mystery.

A project working on these scales of size (the area of Manhattan can comfortably fit into of Jamaica Bay) and time may not need to fine-grain resolution that our urban-based parametric modeling offers. Seavitt Nordenson’s block-based census visualizations worked well in their analysis. However, citizen participation and long-term data collection are vital to the success of the project. Jamaica Bay is a home for thousands; many of whom are starting to realize that environmental stewardship and resiliency are important pieces to their safety.

Seavitt Nordenson’s Shifting Sands proposal was the most exciting project in Landscape Architecture I have seen. Seavitt Nordenson takes on the role of researcher, designer, and ambassador between distinct groups to compile a cohesive and connected management plan for a vulnerable and valuable ecosystem in New York City. The project works to restore the marshland habitat that had been lost in Jamaica Bay from over industrialization, it seeks to protect the residents of surrounding communities from storm surge, and act as one of many soft infrastructure buffers in New York City. These ideas are not necessarily new in landscape architecture – Seavitt Nordenson herself worked on them in Rising Currents nearly a decade ago, but as more organizations and agencies come around to treating the earth and the humans who occupy it as a unified system, design solutions become more and more powerful.

All photos were taken from Seavitt Nordenson’s website, which can be found http://structuresofcoastalresilience.org/locations/jamaica-bay-ny/.

More information regarding Structures of Coastal Resilience can be found http://structuresofcoastalresilience.org/.

John Maxson