© 2007-2011 Christina D. Hansen
Groen Hoek Community Boathouse and Park - Brooklyn, NY
Designed collaboratively with two others, Jake LaChapelle and Raylene Gorum, the project solution is a safe environmental haven for inner city youth where environmental education is taught through the practices of traditional wood boat design and construction. A new high rise boat ‘chandelier’ highlights the boatbuilding in process. A connecting bridge to a landscape dotted with historic industrial containers embraces the estuary as a protected water/playscape for birds, plants and people and its history alike. A place with an abundant aviary and horticultural ecosystem, it is sheltered from the East River’s strong currents and traffic.
Pockets of manmade pools and miniature fjords in a new softening landscape offer respites for young boaters to connect back with the edges easily. States of liquid and land, and connecting dockscapes interweave with each other playfully while tidal action maintains a constant of transitions.
1 2