This project aims to introduce a new type of urban infrastructure that re-imagines the city ’s relationship with its environment, particularly with rain and water. 

We were interested in creating a soft infrastructure that acts more like an ecology, one that proposed a more innovative approach to urban resiliency. Our intervention is a research and development center for this new type of urban infrastructure, which also acts as a publicly accessible educational platform for demonstrating the more harmonious and receptive attitude towards rain, water and temperature that it aims to proliferate.

This system acts as a machine that comes alive and transforms under heavy rainfall, creating one of the few places in the city that becomes more enjoyable when it rains. Establishing a single circulation system for the water it collects, the system reduces CSO pollution in Newtown creek by absorbing and redistributing water before it enters the sewer system.

Adapting cities to increasingly volatile weather conditions is not only a technical problem to be solved, but also a cultural barrier to be overcome. Our proposal addresses this issue by providing a dedicated center to both develop and disseminate the new technologies and, more importantly, the new attitudes towards weather and environment necessary for cities to adapt to an ever-changing world.