Real-World Design Studies
Two real-world design studies envision the adaptive transformation of New York City's historic mixed-use and residential street corridors, bridging street-scaled resilience planning and building-scaled retrofitting proposals.
See Digital Report 04 | Adaptation Design Study: South Street Seaport
& Digital Report 05 | Adaptation Design Study: East Harlem
24.6%
Living Above the Street:
Stewarding New York City's Historic Built Environment Towards Flood Resilience
A 2022 Onera Prize for Historic Preservation Project
Ⓒ Ziming Wang, 2023
33 National Register Historic Districts intersect with New York City's current floodplain,
accounting for 24.6% of all such designations across the city.
See Digital Report 01
Flood Risk of New York City's Historic Built Environment
Streetscape Change
New York City's Post-Sandy Building Code requires elevating all habitable spaces of structures within the 1% floodplain to above Design Flood Elevation (DFE).
This strategy has caused extensive streetscape changes in waterfront neighborhoods, leaving waterfront historic urban forms at high stakes.
See Digital Report 01
Flood Risk of New York City's Historic Built Environment
Innovative Design Strategies
Living Above the Street:
Stewarding New York City's Historic Built Environment Towards Flood Resilience
A 2022 Onera Prize for Historic Preservation Project
Ⓒ Ziming Wang, 2023
Innovative design strategies on building, street and neighborhood scales are urgently needed to facilitate the streetscape-sensitive flood adaptation of New York City's historic built environment.
See Digital Report 03
Streetscape-Sensitive Design Strategies
Interactive Map
Check out the Interactive Map: Flood Adaptation × Historic Preservation in the United States, which lays out design, policy, technical, and financial resources on the flood adaptation of historic built environment across the country.
See Interactive Map: Flood Adaptation × Historic Preservation in the United States.
Policy-Maker & Stakeholder Interviews
Living Above the Street:
Stewarding New York City's Historic Built Environment Towards Flood Resilience
A 2022 Onera Prize for Historic Preservation Project
Ⓒ Ziming Wang, 2023
The heritage resilience discourse has an interdisciplinary nature. Therefore, a collective dialogue is of vital importance: it allows us to acknowledge different values, knowledge and expertise as we tackle the climate crisis and envision our shared urban future.
See Policy-Maker & Stakeholder Interview Series
Streetscape Transformation
A thorough understanding of the various significances associated with historic streetscapes may help us responsibly transform them towards flood resilience, balancing key values including building integrity, street-level interactivity, social-spatial relationship, and usable floor area.
See Digital Report 02
Adaptive Streetscape: Concept & Framework
Living Above the Street:
Stewarding New York City's Historic Built Environment Towards Flood Resilience
A 2022 Onera Prize for Historic Preservation Project
Ⓒ Ziming Wang, 2023
Policy-Making Agendas
Living Above the Street:
Stewarding New York City's Historic Built Environment Towards Flood Resilience
A 2022 Onera Prize for Historic Preservation Project
Ⓒ Ziming Wang, 2023
With the exploration of creative design strategies comes the need for Building Code reforms and heritage resilience policy-making that better accommodate the characters of urban building types, recognize streetscape-sensitive design solutions, and incentive adaptation undertakings.
See Digital Report 06
Policy & Procedural Recommendations