SYMP 3-4 - Communicating Ecological Complexities through Design and Implementation

SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design practice based in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco. We design and advocate for the ecologically restorative and socially engaged landscapes, urban environments, and natural infrastructure of the future. We do this through diverse forms of design—built landscapes, planning, visioning, and research—with the ultimate goal of connecting people to their environments. At the core of SCAPE’s practice, ecological design is threaded through all aspects of our design—we have pioneered a holistic approach that prioritizes innovation along the water’s edge, habitat regeneration, native landscape conservation and water body restoration, informed by cutting-edge research in the natural sciences and environmental engineering. Catalytic projects like Living Breakwaters, China Basin Park, and Public Sediment are models for climate-adaptive design, green-infrastructure implementation, community engagement and visualization. Living Breakwaters takes a layered approach to risk reduction by enhancing physical, ecological and social resilience along the South Shore of Staten Island in the low-lying community of Tottenville. The Living Breakwaters concept was developed by a large, multi-disciplinary team led by SCAPE as part of a winning proposal for Rebuild By Design, the design competition launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) after Superstorm Sandy. China Basin Park in San Francisco, California is a 5-acre waterfront park that provides a future-ready intertidal landscape and urban park. Currently under construction the project through the design, engineering and construction team is an example of innovative construction implementation incorporating adaptive design solutions for sea level rise, urban heat island, habitat enhancement and connectivity and stormwater capture and reuse. Public Sediment for Alameda Creek, originally developed as the SCAPE team’s proposal for the Resilient By

Design: Bay Area Challenge, is a watershed-scale climate adaptation and open space vision that addresses sea-level rise, drowning bayland ecosystems and sediment scarcity along the edges of Fremont, Union City and Newark, California. Following the Resilient By Design competition, Public Sediment has gone on to influence a suite of related SCAPE projects in the Bay Area, including the Hayward Regional Shoreline Adaptation Master Plan and a pilot gravel beach restoration project at Eden Landing Ecological Preserve.