This dissensus on climate change percolates all the issues that surround our well-being and undergirds the many emergent social movements that highlight specific strains of inequity in labor, land, housing, education and health as intertwined with questions of environmental justice. The lack of agreement between governments at local, state, national and international levels is shaping policies that are often in conflict with conditions and people on the ground.
Nowhere is this dissonance more apparent than in the precarious communities living along the water’s edge, that have recently been inundated by catastrophic hurricanes. The disconnect between the resident communities and the bureaucracies of resource management has exposed the fault lines of decades of social engineering and related economic inequity.
For this research we’ve pondered questions of resilience and culture in Edgemere neighborhood in Queens. Using ethnographic field research along with methods central to architectural design, we’ve worked closely with different community partners such as the Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability & Equity (https://www.riserockaway.org/rise/) and the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy (http://www.jbrpc.org/) to speculate on the potential of architecture to respond to residents’ needs while keeping an eye on the future habitat of the Atlantic coast.