Rebuild by Design

Recently, the U.S. Secretary of State Shaun Donovan (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ) announced that three cooperating Dutch design firms - Bosch Slabbers Landscape+Urban Design , H+N+S landscape architects and Palmbout Urban Landscapes, are amongst the winners in the international Rebuild by Design competition. This competition was launched as a response to the damage of Hurricane Sandy. Along with Deltares, Rebel Group and a number of American partners the team worked over the last year on their proposal 'Living with the Bay'. The U.S. government grants millions to further develop and implement the design.

Living with the bay
‘Living with the bay' aims towards safe, clean and natural bays on the coast of Long Island, where residing is good . Here, the water is muted naturally , and where necessary, is shut out by means of dykes and local storm gates. The proposed coastal management -making use of existing water and sediment flows- is more durable and ultimately cheaper. The now carelessly handled rivers regain their full potential for water storage in the near future. Meanwhile, the contact between land and water, the main asset of this estuary, is restored to its full glory. The construction budget is allocated specifically for the design and implementation of projects along Mill River. Well-known Dutch water principles are employed along this ‘blue green river’ in the form of a delay, store and drain strategy.

background
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy left deep scars in the northeastern United States. Over 650,000 homes and hundreds of thousands of businesses were destroyed or damaged. Sandy not only brought to light the region’s social and physical vulnerabilities, but also stressed that social and physical aspects are greatly interdependent. The Rebuild by Design competition is focused on innovative, resilient and sustainable solutions on a regional scale which can provide for a new standard for reconstruction of the affected area. The idea comes from Henk Ovink, the Dutch senior official who was "loaned" to the U.S. government for reconstruction after Sandy .