Gowanus by Design: WATER_WORKS Competition Exhibit Opens Tomorrow

Back in February, we had published the winners of Gowanus by Design's second design and planning competition, WATER_WORKS. The intent of the competition, according to David Briggs, co-founder of Gowanus by Design, was to design a new community resource in Douglass/Greene Park that shares the site with a Combined Sewer Overflow [CSO] retention facility.

The award winners, along with other entries selected by the GbD competition committee, will be on display tomorrow, Wednesday, May 22, at the Old American Can Factory Gallery, 232 Third Street at Third Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. The event starts at 6:30PM.

According to Briggs, recent studies by the EPA show that the pool and adjacent playground will likely be demolished in order to properly remove the heavily contaminated soil beneath the park, which is the site of the former Fulton Manufactured Gas Plant site. The competition focused on how the restoration of contaminated land in the canal watershed offers an opportunity to design a community resource that embraces the area's history and current renewal.

Briggs says, “We envisioned this as an opportunity to explore a new urban typology while focusing on our protean relationship with water. The competition program deliberately placed two disparate uses of water on the same site; we challenged the entrants to consider how our use of water could be the catalyst for an architectural solution. We are very pleased with many of the designs that we received and look forward to presenting them at the exhibit."

The WATER_WORKS competition jury was composed of David J. Lewis, Principal, LTL Architects; Richard Plunz, Director, Urban Design Lab, Columbia GSAPP; Robert M Rogers, Founding Partner, Rogers Marvel Architects; Andrew Simons, Chair, Gowanus Canal Conservancy; and Joel Towers, Executive Dean, Parsons The New School of Design.

All images courtesy of Gowanus by Design.