DoTank:Brooklyn

Gowanus Design Competition

This design competition for the Gowanus Canal/Gowanus neighborhood, is interesting for several reasons.

Gowanus is a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that is largely industrial in character. It’s gentrification presents many challenges, some of which are:

• Preserving/Adding affordable housing
• Taking of advantage of available buying power
• Preserving local culture

The Gowanus neighborhood itself is problematic for several reasons, some of which are:

• The Canal was recently designated a Superfund site
• The industrial nature of the neighborhood can be depressing
• The Gowanus Expressway is one of the biggest transportation planning mistakes in the the history of Robert Moses, and therefore in the history of New York. The Expressway creates vast tracks of dead space and is a health hazard, along with the Canal

If you can address these issues in your proposal, then we will gladly post it here and root for you.

Original Article