Before there were sponge cities, there were sponge parks. Brooklyn-s Gowanus Canal is the site of the Sponge Park master plan and pilot projects, instigating a widespread movement toward greater urban permeability. Designed by Susannah Drake and her former Brooklyn-based firm DLANDstudio Architecture + Landscape Architecture, their execution was completed in 2016 and recognised with National AIA and ASLA Urban Design Awards as well as the inaugural Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award for Climate Action in 2020.
The Gowanus Canal was the channelised reminder of a former freshwater creek and tidal marsh. Industrial use in the 19th and 20th centuries left a legacy of heavy pollution in the soil and water. Historic industrial buildings lined the canal, so that residential neighbourhoods had scarce opportunity to access the water-s edge. Today-s Sponge Park is conceived as a series of public urban waterfront spaces that slow, absorb, and filter dirty surface water runoff t
