Blog

On the Boards: Sustainability

May 27, 2009 6:26 pm
Striv­ing to be green­er may seem like overkill for a new green oasis with 1,300 new trees, but GIPEC and the West 8 Team are incor­po­rat­ing a broad range of sus­tain­able design fea­tures into the Park and Pub­lic Space Mas­ter Plan. Our focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty makes more sense if you remem­ber that parks are whol­ly man-made envi­ron­ments. How they are designed and con­struct­ed can have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. Like­wise, the abil­i­ty of a park to thrive for future gen­er­a­tions depends on sound plan­ning and design that antic­i­pates the impact of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment on the park itself. This becomes even more impor­tant and more chal­leng­ing in the face of a warm­ing plan­et and ris­ing sea lev­els. Some of the key strate­gies the design­ers are using to min­i­mize the park’s impact, off­set impacts else­where, and respond to a warm­ing plan­et are: 
  • Focus on site spe­cif­ic con­di­tions and design accordingly
  • Focus on native plant­i­ngs as the back­bone of the plant and tree selec­tion, as well as local­ly adapt­ed species that are expect­ed to thrive as tem­per­a­ture ranges change
  • Reuse as much mate­r­i­al as pos­si­ble from demo­li­tion of the Island’s obso­lete park­ing lots and non-his­toric buildings.
  • Reuse clean-fill from oth­er local projects to build up parts of the Island and ele­vate the roots of new trees out of the pro­ject­ed 100-year flood zone.
  • Replace imper­vi­ous asphalt with plant­i­ngs wher­ev­er pos­si­ble to reduce storm water run-off and decrease urban heat island effect
  • Man­age storm water on site to min­i­mize run-off into the Har­bor and City sewers
 Below is an illus­tra­tion of the Island’s cur­rent topog­ra­phy. The orange line shows the lev­el to which a 1‑in-100-year flood could rise in the year 2100, if glob­al warm­ing caus­es a rise in sea lev­el of up to two feet.

Island's current topography. The orange line shows the level to which a 100-year flood would rise in the year 2100. And here is an illus­tra­tion of one of the West 8 Team’s ideas for plan­ning the future park- lift­ing the root zone of new trees above proe­jct­ed flood levels.

root zone
Tell us what you think about our focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty by respond­ing to this post or drop­ping us an email at Info-​GIPEC@​empire.​state.​ny.​us.
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