Book Talk: Sponge Park

EventIn Person

In Partnership with Housing Works

On Wednesday, April 9 from 6-8 PM, join us for another Municipal Art Society + Housing Works book talk! Writer Susannah Churchill Drake will discuss her new book, Sponge Park: Gowanus Canal, in conversation with architect Stephen Cassell, Principal of New York City-based firm Architecture Research Office (ARO). Stephen will chat with Susannah about the book, her process as a writer and architect, and her work on resilient urban design and urban climate adaptation innovation.

As explored in Susannah’s book, “the Sponge Park master plan and pilot projects for the regeneration of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal: a pioneering, successful, and award-winning concept that instigated a widespread movement toward greater urban permeability” (Park Books). Come by on Wednesday, April 9 to hear these two architects chat about design, Gowanus, and more!

Doors at 6 PM, event at 6:15 PM. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Questions? Email us at events@mas.org.

The event is SOLD OUT, but walk-ins are always welcome at Housing Works.

About the Book

Before there were sponge cities, there were sponge parks. Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal is the site of the Sponge Park master plan and pilot projects, instigating a widespread movement toward greater urban permeability. Designed by Susannah Drake and her former Brooklyn-based firm DLANDstudio Architecture + Landscape Architecture, their project was completed in 2016 and recognized with National AIA and ASLA Urban Design Awards and the inaugural Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award for Climate Action in 2020.

The Gowanus Canal was the channelized reminder of a former freshwater creek and tidal marsh. Industrial use in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries left a legacy of heavy pollution in the soil and water. Historic industrial buildings lined the canal. Residential neighborhoods had limited opportunities to access the water’s edge. Sponge Park was conceived as a series of public urban waterfront spaces that slow, absorb, and filter dirty surface water runoff to clean contaminated canal water, reduce combined sewer overflow, and add open space in a park-starved neighborhood. Revealing the form, distribution, and size of natural ecological patterns in relation to the shape and patterns of infrastructure, neighborhoods, and political jurisdictions was a key component of the design.

This book introduces the Sponge Park in great detail with photos, illustrations, plans, and diagrams. It demonstrates the concept’s potential as a component of a larger vision for a new paradigm of coastal urbanism, upland adaptation, and right-of-way design in the twenty-first century. Sponge parks proactively address how to manage stormwater runoff from increasingly severe storm events and reduce detrimental impacts. It is a must-read for design students, architects, and academics as well as for elected officials, policymakers, and community activists. Learn more about the book >

Wednesday, April 9
6:00 PM — 8:00 PM

Housing Works Bookstore
126 Crosby Street
New York, NY 10012

Tickets:
Free!

Attend
  • Come to Housing Works this April to learn about "Sponge Park: Gowanus Canal." Photo: Park Books.
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  • Writer Susannah Churchill Drake and moderator Stephen Cassell.
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Meet the Speakers

Susannah Churchill Drake, Featured Writer
Susannah Churchill Drake FAIA FASLA is a Principal at Sasaki and founder of DLANDstudio. Susannah lectures globally about resilient urban design and has taught at Harvard, IIT, and the Cooper Union among others. Through a pioneering methodology of partnering with communities on grants from organizations including the Graham Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Foundation, the AIA, NOAA, EPA, NEIWPCC, NYSDEC, and NYSCA, she enables green infrastructure and park creation. Susannah was recognized as an Architectural League Emerging Voice, with the AIA Young Architect Award and a MASterworks Award. Her award-winning work is consistently at the forefront of urban climate adaptation innovation.

Her project “From Redlining to Blue Zoning: Equity and Environmental Risk, Liberty City, Miami 2100,” was included in the 2023 Venice Biennale. Susannah received the inaugural Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Climate Action. Her first book “Gowanus Sponge Park,” was recently published by Park Books, is being distributed in US by Chicago University Press. Drake’s work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.

Susannah graduated from Dartmouth College and earned MArch and MLA degrees from the Harvard GSD.

Stephen Cassell, Moderator
Stephen Cassell, FAIA, is Principal of Architecture Research Office (ARO), a New York City firm united by their collaborative process, commitment to accountable action, and social and environmental responsibility. ARO’s diverse body of work has earned the firm over a hundred design awards including the 2020 National AIA Architecture Firm Award. He is a lecturer at MIT, and has taught at Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, and other institutions. Stephen has lectured throughout the United States and is the former Chair of the Board of the Van Alen Institute. He was a Fall/Winter 2023 Resident at the American Academy in Rome. Stephen holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Princeton University and received his Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.