BIG Team, Bridging Berm. Image: BIG Team

Developed as part of the Rebuild by Design competition, the BIG Team’s winning proposal for a massive green berm has been awarded 335 million dollars from HUD. SCE is among the partners who participated in the BIG Team’s proposal, with a Fall 2013 M.Arch studio led by Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Kidd and Jeremy Alain Siegel charging the students to develop design responses to specific high-density urban areas vulnerable to climatic events. The final design proposes a large-scale protective berm around lower Manhattan. The berm is green and conceived as a park-like public space, thus increasing the resiliency of this vulnerable area of New York city while simultaneously providing expanded access to much-needed public amenities. While there is no timeline completion at this point, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has stated that work will begin as soon as possible and continue until the job is complete. “Over four or five years, you’ll see a hugely different physical reality in this city,” he said. More information about BIG’s proposal can be found here.