NEXUS CENTERHow can we design to protect against flooding?
The Nexus Center is a mixed use hub that takes the idea of transitional space and turns them into points of interest while taking flood levels into account.
Research and Public.
The building is composed of two main cores: the research center and the public museum, with an interconnecting gallery hall serving as the building's spine to bridge the two spaces together.
Humans and Water.
The center also features a sunken plaza, which is transformed into a retention pond when flooded, along with an outdoor research center that uses constructed marshlands to measure climate change and its impacts on the canal.
The “Inbetween”.
The emphasis on these “in between” spaces derive from the surrounding Gowanus neighborhood and its current history; the Gowanus is experiencing a gradual shift in rezoning and cleaning up of the nearby canal. With this redevelopment of the neighborhood, it showcases that its history is able to go from a sewage ridden flood zone to a clean mixed-use area, and how the current transition is integral to the understanding on how to move forward.
