Minds In the Gutter » The Classmates

English Kills CSO Wetland

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:20:30 +0000

Our proposal is to create a subsurface wetland system, which would be designed similarly to a tub or dam. The wetland would be self contained and framed within the confines of the East Branch of Newtown Creek extending as far out as the current floatables boom. The proposal wetland area would be 200 feet wide and 1,000 feet long and involve the construction of a 20 feet high retaining wall and the placement of approximately 10 feet of fill material over the site.

The primary goal of this proposal is to minimize the volume of wastewater discharged through the CSO outfalls NC-083 and NC-019 (total: 586,700,000 gallon per year). Considering that for every gallon per day of greywater produced, 1 cubic foot of artificial wetland is required to mitigate, 1,607,397 cubic feet of wetland total would be required to process the average daily load. However the outfall site is constrained by the scale of possible intervention and can only accommodate an area of approximately 800,000 cubic feet of constructed wetland. If we take into account the improvements in point source stormwater capture that will be implemented throughout the Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan, they will lead to a reduction in CSO discharge volumes at this site over time. Therefore this particular proposal would be potentially adequate if designed to only handle 50% of the annual outfall volume.

This post was submitted by Alexa Fabrega and Patrick Wickman.

Heckscher Park

Geoffrey Dyck and Claudia Ibaven — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:11:56 +0000

Heckscher Park, a mostly concrete space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was the focus of our team’s project. Distilling some of the park’s key issues – underutilization, poor connectivity, superfluous fencing, few trees, and inefficient storm water drainage – we came up with a series objectives, ultimately leading to three overarching recommendations. We propose that certain measures of (1) ground transformation, (2) roof implementation, and (3) fence adaption, will create a better sense of place, certainly, but also help mitigate CSOs more effectively.

This post was submitted by Geoffrey Dyck and Claudia Ibaven.

Team HAKA

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:53:21 +0000

Former classmates on team HAKA retrofit the Harlem River span Highbridge with a design that repurposes the former aqueduct as a self-irrigating greenway and a stormwater management system that would capture approximately one million gallons of water per year.

Sang-ayunan

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:49:13 +0000

Team Sang-ayunan, calls their design a “Curbolution”. They create a pedestrian-friendly new curb for Rockefeller Plaza that tucks a compact bioswale right into the gutter. Team Sang-ayunan are classmates from Cornell University.