With two destructive tropical storms in two years, New York City—like other global cities—is entering a phase of adaptation to catastrophic climate events that are a result of carbon cycle disruption by human, urban, and industrial practices. Superstorm recovery will require more than a simple fix; it will necessitate systemic adaptation to escalating storm surge, precipitation, and wind events through the construction of new urban landscapes that have the capacity to merge social, cultural, and environmental forces.

The Landscape Architecture Program of the City College of New York’s Spitzer School of Architecture, with support from the Municipal Art Society, American Society of Landscape Architects New York Chapter, and the Institute for Urban Design, will host a conference of municipal leaders, scientists, engineers, and designers to explore the impact of past and future storms on New York City’s infrastructural systems: Water/Waste, Power/Data, Circulation/Fuel, Parks/Recreation, and Shelter. The conference will reveal the operating systems of the city to open speculation on Waterproofing New York as an act of coordinated yet opportunistic, pragmatic, and inventive city design.

The conference will explore the potential to imagine city design that transcends risk, which seeks to assess hazard, in order to grapple with propositions in a context characterized by the uncertainty of multi-scalar social and environmental systems.

This event is free and open to the public.

Featured Speakers and Panelists Include:

Waste / Water

Jeanette Compton, Director of Green Infrastructure, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Adjunct Professor, Fordham University
Paul Mankiewicz, Executive Director, The Gaia Institute
Lydia Kallipoliti, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cooper Union and Columbia University in New York
Kate Orff, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Co-Director of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia University, Principal, SCAPE

Power / Data

Frank Ruchala, Associate Urban Planner and Designer, Department of City Planning for the City of New York
Byron Stigge, Director, Level Agency for Infrastructure
Chris Reed, Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Principal, Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Miguel Robles Duran, Assistant Professor of Urbanism, School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, and Director, MS Design and Urban Ecologies

Circulation/Fuel

Petra Todorovich Messick, Senior Officer, Amtrak Outreach and Communications-North, Former Director, America 2050
Kevin Foster, Associate Professor of Economics, The City College of New York
Denise Hoffman Brandt, Associate Professor and Director of the Landscape Architecture Program at The City College of New York, and Principal, Hoffman Brandt Projects LLC
Georgeen Theodore, Associate Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, and Director of the Infrastructure Planning Program

Parks/Recreation
Dennis Burton, Administrative Horticulturist/Forest Restoration Manager of Van Cortlandt Park, Past President of the Society for Ecological Restoration
Erika Svendsen, Research Social Scientist, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, The City College of New York, and Principal, Catherine Seavitt Studio
Gullivar Shepard, Associate Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Shelter

Thaddeus Pawlowski, Long Term Planning Advisor, Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery
Mark Ginsberg, Partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP, New York and National Housing Conference Board of Directors and Citizens Housing and Planning Council Board President
Lance Jay Brown, ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture, The City College of New York, and Co-Chair, AIANY Committee on Design for Risk and Reconstruction
Deborah Gans, Professor, Architecture School at Pratt Institute, and Principal, Gans Studio
Hilary Sample, Associate Professor, Columbia University GSAPP, and Principal, MOS

Closing remarks by

Michael Sorkin, Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York, and Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio, Terreform

Featured Speakers and Panelists Include:

Waste / Water

Jeanette Compton, Director of Green Infrastructure, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Adjunct Professor, Fordham University
Paul Mankiewicz, Executive Director, The Gaia Institute
Lydia Kallipoliti, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cooper Union and Columbia University in New York
Kate Orff, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Co-Director of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia University, Principal, SCAPE

Power / Data

Frank Ruchala, Associate Urban Planner and Designer, Department of City Planning for the City of New York
Byron Stigge, Director, Level Agency for Infrastructure
Chris Reed, Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Principal, Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Miguel Robles Duran, Assistant Professor of Urbanism, School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, and Director, MS Design and Urban Ecologies

Circulation/Fuel

Petra Todorovich Messick, Senior Officer, Amtrak Outreach and Communications-North, Former Director, America 2050
Kevin Foster, Associate Professor of Economics, The City College of New York
Denise Hoffman Brandt, Associate Professor and Director of the Landscape Architecture Program at The City College of New York, and Principal, Hoffman Brandt Projects LLC
Georgeen Theodore, Associate Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, and Director of the Infrastructure Planning Program

Parks/Recreation
Dennis Burton, Administrative Horticulturist/Forest Restoration Manager of Van Cortlandt Park, Past President of the Society for Ecological Restoration
Erika Svendsen, Research Social Scientist, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, The City College of New York, and Principal, Catherine Seavitt Studio
Gullivar Shepard, Associate Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Shelter

Thaddeus Pawlowski, Long Term Planning Advisor, Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery
Mark Ginsberg, Partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP, New York and National Housing Conference Board of Directors and Citizens Housing and Planning Council Board President
Lance Jay Brown, ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture, The City College of New York, and Co-Chair, AIANY Committee on Design for Risk and Reconstruction
Deborah Gans, Professor, Architecture School at Pratt Institute, and Principal, Gans Studio
Hilary Sample, Associate Professor, Columbia University GSAPP, and Principal, MOS

Closing remarks by

Michael Sorkin, Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York, and Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio, Terreform