Far Rockaway has been identified by the Audubon Society as part of a critical ecological thoroughfare called the Atlantic Flyway, which hosts millions of birds migrating from as far as Canada to South America. It’s disappearing. As intensifying storms and rising ocean levels erode its shoreline, both animal and human populations suffer from waters and soils polluted by unsustainable energy and urban waste systems. The island shelters several species of endangered shorebirds whose populations plummeted due to human encroachment on their habitat and food sources. Correspondingly, people endure conditions like wastewater runoffs from infrastructural plants, flight noise pollution from JFK, street flooding from poor storm drainage, and damaged homes from Hurricane Sandy.
A system of intervention that mutually benefits the damaged human and natural worlds must be implemented. To this end, the Arverne Avian Ecological Gray Water Treatment Park is a center for learning, research, and environmental management that will revitalize habitat for endangered bird populations and re-connect the academic network of New York City to its natural systems and human consequences. The Avian Park achieves these goals by transforming the fence around the ecological preserve into a strip of raised park that collects and processes wastewater through bioswales and facultative lagoons, while providing a safe vantage point for the local population to observe these processes and the avian habitat beyond.
Designed by © 2016 Da Ying, Troy Lacombe, Miranda Shugars, and Violet Whitney. All rights reserved.