Ilana Steenkamp URBAN DESIGN + PLANNING + ARCHITECTURE
williamsburg futures
Williamsburg Futures,
Brooklyn
The year is 2025... In the developer driven context of Williamsburg, impetus to develop has ensured the continued mushrooming of high-rise apartments off the coastline. Williamsburg has assumed polarized means of moving forward, creating disparate urban fragments...
1) Bedford stop, once the heart of Williamsburg,
lies as a piece of objurgate infrastructure in a
slightly neglected landscape. Communities
activist groups have taken to gorilla gardening
in the abandoned construction sites. The
community gardens provide a semblance of
normality within the larger urban scene, riddledwith surveillance equipment and perfectly curated street furniture...
2) A few blocks further towards the coastline,
developers have capitalised on the views of
the Manhattan skyline, building as tall as
permission can be extended. In the face of
sea-level rise, developers have done all in
their power to build as close to the water’s
edge through mitigatory measures.
3) A recreational promenade and wavebreakers, acting as a seawall has becomea superb commodity flaunted to potentialbuyers. Bushwick Inlet Park, and its new ferryterminal is the crown jewel of the promenadestretching from Dumbo to Greenpoint.