Sponge Zoning / The Gowanus RoofScape

Brooklyn’s Gowanus Watershed is a case-study in the water management problems of the global de-industrializing city that is witnessing unprecedented increases in density straining its existing infrastructure for handling water. The introduction of the Gowanus Canal onto the National Priority list for the EPA and its designation as a Superfund site in 2010 has raised the public consciousness of the toxicity of the waterway and focused needed attention on ecological relief of this postindustrial watershed’s runoff and storm-water infiltration. New York, like many industrializing cities, developed an infrastructure of the Combined Sewer, a system that drains Waste-Water in the same system as surface run-off and storm-water, resulting in a health risk during times of storm overflow. Recently, much focus has been given to the water infiltration and remediation surface strategies within the neighborhood’s streetscape and open space network, but relatively little attention has been paid to the other major contributor to storm-water runoff, the surrounding building roofs.

Volume Editors
Amir Ameri & Rebecca O'Neal Dagg

ISBN
978-1-944214-14-2