Manufacturing Gowanus

Brooklyn, New York | 2015 | Competition

This project traces the historical location of industries along the Gowanus Canal, and the pollutants they left behind, and proposes a return to a type of manufacturing that instead of contaminating the land develops solutions for its remediation. Most of the existing pollutants can be grouped into the categories of chemicals, organic compounds, fuels, metals, and oils. Bioremediation processes can be researched and employed to clean the land of these contaminants while also yielding new by-products such as biofuels, landscaping soil, and recovered metals.

Post-industrial sites in urban areas have the potential to become productive landscapes that simultaneously remediate the pollution while entering a new era of manufacturing through the research, development, and use of bioremediation technologies. This project proposes a return to the industrial history of Gowanus with an innovative industry that concurrently remediates the land, educates the public, and provides the new opportunities for economic development.