Resilient Communities; designing flood-risk protection measures that will increase the social and spatial quality of different communities, increasing the quality of live.

The increasing frequency and intensity of storms forces us to find different ways to develop our coastline. To fully benefit from their potential, flood-risk defense needs to adapt to the context in which it is set. The location chosen to develop this project is Coney Island, an urbanized peninsula located on the Atlantic coast of New York City. This area is characterized by a wide variety of communities and water related hazards. Current flood defense measures do not take the occupation, network, or social conditions into account even tough different approaches have a different impact on the spatial and social aspects of a community. This project investigates how a spatial framework can be created that contributes to a resilient flood-risk protection, while improving the living quality of communities.

The base for this project lies in its context. By using the natural processes that occur around Coney Island as a base for further development, the project incorporates a certain natural flexibility. Man-made elements within the bay will trap sediment from the ocean. Different ecological habitats will develop on these sandbanks and increase the water quality, improving the ecological value and recreational use. Due to frictional and physical resistance caused by these elements and plants, the flood-risk protection is increased over time naturally.

This project shows that, by focusing on the adaptivity of a design over time, a synergy between flood-risk protection, ecological quality and quality of live can be created.