The Financial District-Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan is the keystone of New York City’s Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency effort. The public report, released in December of 2021, illustrates a master plan and concept design for the rethinking of one-mile of Manhattan’s most vulnerable and valuable waterfront. The plan demonstrates a comprehensive strategy to protect these neighborhoods from coastal storms and flooding while addressing the area’s legacy infrastructure and physical constraints. Over the course of two years, in close collaboration with NYC EDC and engineer partner ARCADIS, ONE led the overall design through a multidisciplinary integration that threaded together flood protection infrastructure, shoreline extension and articulation, transportation and maritime planning, and public open space and architecture improvements, into a cohesive vision for the future of Lower Manhattan.
As design lead, ONE’s role was wide-ranging and deeply integrated throughout the project, from helping to shape the project goals and evaluation criteria, to leading the development of the “solution space” framework for all technical disciplines (a methodology for defining basic thresholds for project viability as well as planning aspirations), to the physical testing of flood protection alignments, the communication of the project to a range of stakeholders and local community members, and, finally, the consolidation of all inputs into a comprehensive concept design and masterplan.
Status: Unbuilt
Location: New York, NY
