Sponge Park: Gowanus Canal documents the master plan and pilot projects that preceded the global sponge city movement — a built argument for urban permeability rooted in Brooklyn's most contaminated waterway.
About This Book
Before the term “sponge city” entered mainstream planning discourse, Susannah Drake and DLANDstudio were designing for it on the banks of the Gowanus Canal. This book traces the Sponge Park from concept through completion: a series of public waterfront spaces engineered to slow, absorb, and filter stormwater runoff, reduce combined sewer overflow, and reclaim open space in an underserved Brooklyn neighbourhood. Richly documented through photos, plans, diagrams, and illustrations, it makes the case that ecological urbanism and infrastructure design are inseparable — and that coastal adaptation demands a new paradigm for how cities are built at the water's edge.
Key Features
- 156 pages of photographs, technical drawings, site plans, and ecological diagrams documenting the Sponge Park from design through construction
- Design by Susannah Drake and DLANDstudio Architecture + Landscape Architecture
- Case study: Gowanus Canal Sponge Park, Brooklyn, New York — completed 2016
- Published by Park Books, 2020
What You'll Discover
- How the Gowanus Canal's industrial legacy of heavy soil and water pollution shaped the design logic of the Sponge Park's filtration and absorption systems
- The relationship between natural ecological patterns — form, distribution, scale — and the overlapping geometries of infrastructure, neighbourhoods, and political jurisdictions
- A replicable model for right-of-way design and upland adaptation that addresses increasingly severe stormwater events in dense urban contexts
- The project's role in establishing a broader vision for coastal urbanism in the 21st century, evidenced by its National AIA, ASLA Urban Design Awards, and inaugural Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award for Climate Action
About the Author
Susannah C. Drake is the designer behind the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park and founding principal of DLANDstudio Architecture + Landscape Architecture, formerly based in Brooklyn. Her practice has been recognised with National AIA and ASLA Urban Design Awards, as well as the inaugural Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award for Climate Action in 2020.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 156
- Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783038602491
- Publisher: Park Books
- Publication Date: 2020
Perfect For: Landscape architects, urban designers, and planners working at the intersection of ecology and infrastructure; design students and academics researching coastal urbanism, stormwater management, or climate-adaptive design; and policy-makers engaged with urban resilience and environmental remediation.