The Offshore Towers | LAIA Stem

Abstract

“The Offshore Towers” is a water-based, mixed-use development to adopt the growing cultural, resiliency, and technological shifts of New York. 

The coast is a dynamic environment for civilizations to thrive. Our ancestors sought the coast for its resource abundance, from food to transportation, presenting good trading opportunities that promoted development in strategic coastal spots. This trend continues today and is accelerating, with coastal populations expected to increase by 1.66 billion people by 2050. “The Offshore Towers” challenges the built environment’s standards along the shorelines with a novel land reclamation technique that uses caisson technology as a foundation and infrastructural base.

Technological Hub

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google plan to settle and increase their office space in New York, which will boost housing demands and adjust the average household income in the area. These companies alone will occupy at least 15 locations in the city. Its presence will boost the technology startup scene in New York, as well as the incoming population’s logistics demands.

The infrastructural requirements of a reshaping population are poised to disrupt the metabolism of the city, however the Offshore Towers looks into the history of the water lots in New York City to adapt to the new needs with ease, by plugging infrastructure to the shorelines. The extension of Battery Park is an opportunity to add built-up area while contributing to the public space and the Hudson River.

Residential Area

New York City is working to make its neighborhoods more diverse. For example, the Financial District is increasing its residential area, especially given the outflow of people after the stock market closes to other neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village or Brooklyn Heights, leaving this district almost as a ghost town after working hours. The restoration of the One Wall Street and Woolworth buildings shows a shift in planning towards increasing the Financial District’s residential area.

More recently, given the sanctuary city status of New York City, there has been an increase in immigration which further accentuates the need for innovation. Notably, Mayor Eric Adams recently said that this will cost New York City over $12 billion. As history illustrates, urban ingenuity has continuously fueled a vibrant society, establishing NYC as a ground of innovation. Where can we find solutions to this challenge?

Offshore Construction

New York City stands as one of the world's densest and most expensive urban centers. Throughout its history, the city has leaned on construction innovation to meet the demands of its burgeoning population and address pressing climate challenges, from high-rise buildings to land reclamation.

Land reclamation is part of New York's DNA. Since the Dutch settled on Manhattan Island, followed by the British, there have been extensive land reclamation practices. This has helped the city adapt to its growing needs. For example, in 1680, the water lots system was implemented so the government could raise capital, allowing the buyer of the water lot to fill the area with new land.

This has raised some environmental challenges since some of these reclaimed lands were established on marshes and wetlands, crucial to the conservation of the environment. Today's technology enables implementation systems that promote the coexistence of the built environment with the natural environment. Attached is a map illustrating the amount of reclaimed land and the intervention area.

Foundation with Caisson Technology

The Offshore Towers use caissons with foundation piles to reclaim land, expanding Manhattan's built-up area and protecting it from storms. These structures provide both stability and underwater space for public services. Inside the caissons, there are public areas and infrastructures that integrate into the existing city. Around the caissons, there are strategies for the environmental revitalization of the Hudson River and energy production strategies that gather the river flow.

The caissons can be placed offshore for the construction of buildings, and to create green spaces that support the well-being of citizens and safeguard the area from climate shifts. The Offshore Towers work alongside projects like the Big U, extending the buffer zone to shield Manhattan from storms. They play a role in upgrading the city by acting as a hub for new infrastructure networks within the hollow concrete caisson.

Objectives

a) Reduce gentrification pressures of the ever-increasing population and technological industry by building on newly created land.

b) Improve the local coastal resiliency with a new buffer zone to protect the existing urban grid of Manhattan.

c) Improve logistics to the existing grid through the introduction of an automated last-mile logistics network.

Coastal Growth

Some factors that contribute to the growth of coastal cities are the following:

-Urbanization: Nowadays, about 54% of the world population lives in urban areas. According to estimates, of all the current 7.7 billion inhabitants, 40% live within 100km of the coast. That is 3.08 billion people living in coastal areas and a market of 1.66 billion people incoming to a coastal city.

-Population growth: The current world population of 7.7 billion people is expected to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050; this means a 2 billion increase in population. At current rates, there will be an extra 800 million people depending on innovative coastal developments.

-Productivity: Coastal environments are the ones that contribute most to a country's economy. This drives the increasing demand for coastal land and reclaimed land. Innovation in the traditional land reclamation systems has a high potential to contribute to the location's productivity where it is implanted.

-Migrations: Inequalities in regards to employment opportunities, especially between the north and south hemispheres, makes of the northern countries a desirable destination for many migrants. Adding to this, in the southern hemisphere are found some of the fastest-growing population worldwide.

-Tourism industry: Worldwide, at 2016 levels, we were experiencing a tourism population of over 1.2 billion visitors per year. Cities like New York itself hosts about 60 million visitors a year. This industry increases land demands to absorb this temporal but constant population.

-City Sprawl: The sprawl of cities uses land that provides ecosystem services such as wetlands to combat sea-level rise or forests for climate adaptation. In a coastal city, the threshold between land and sea pushes the growth more intensively towards mainland.

Lead Architects: Pratik Borse, Gabriel Munoz Moreno, Jordi Muro

Photography: Monolot

Website: https://monolot.studio/