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New York has some great oyster bars, but the shellfish may soon be the city’s great hero instead of food at a seafood restaurant.
To help clean up America’s polluted urban environment, architecture firm Scape Studio is creating an oyster park and reef for the mouth of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.
Called ‘Oyster-tecture’, the waterfront infrastructure project will feature oysters helping to improve and filter one of the nation’s most polluted waterways.
Researchers hope that the new beds of oysters could break down pollution, in areas where the water temperature, currents, and other conditions are right.
“We propose to nurture an active oyster culture that engages issues of water quality, rising tides, and community-based development around Brooklyn’s Red Hook and Gowanus Canal,” Kate Orff of Scape Studio said on the firm’s website. “An armature for the growth of native oysters and marine life is designed for the shallow waters of the Bay Ridge Flats just south of Red Hook. This living reef is constructed from a field of piles and a woven web of ‘fuzzy rope’ that supports oyster growth and builds a rich three-dimensional landscape mosaic.”
“A watery regional park for the New York Harbor emerges that prefigures the city’s return to the waterfront in the next century. The reef attenuates waves and cleans millions of gallons of Harbor water through harnessing the biotic processes of oysters, mussels and eelgrass, and enables neighbourhood fabrics that welcome the water to develop further inland,” she said.
Oysters are said to be one of nature’s best cleaners: each oyster filters about 50 gallons of water a day.
Marine biologist Ray Grizzle told the Associated Press that oysters pump water to feed, “retains any polluted particles, and releases the rest—purified”.
Of course, oysters alone will not be able to completely clean New York’s waters, but could assist in doing so.
And because the purpose of the oysters at Oyster-tecture is to clean toxins in the water, the oysters will never be eaten.
Oysters were once plentiful in the waters of New York. However, by the turn of the 19th century, they died out due to industrial waste, sewage, and the dredging of the harbour to make room for shipping and development.
[via Associated Press and Scape Studio]
New York has some great oyster bars, but the shellfish may soon be the city’s great hero instead of food at a seafood restaurant.
To help clean up America’s polluted urban environment, architecture firm Scape Studio is creating an oyster park and reef for the mouth of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.
Called ‘Oyster-tecture’, the waterfront infrastructure project will feature oysters helping to improve and filter one of the nation’s most polluted waterways.
Researchers hope that the new beds of oysters could break down pollution, in areas where the water temperature, currents, and other conditions are right.
“We propose to nurture an active oyster culture that engages issues of water quality, rising tides, and community-based development around Brooklyn’s Red Hook and Gowanus Canal,” Kate Orff of Scape Studio said on the firm’s website. “An armature for the growth of native oysters and marine life is designed for the shallow waters of the Bay Ridge Flats just south of Red Hook. This living reef is constructed from a field of piles and a woven web of ‘fuzzy rope’ that supports oyster growth and builds a rich three-dimensional landscape mosaic.”
“A watery regional park for the New York Harbor emerges that prefigures the city’s return to the waterfront in the next century. The reef attenuates waves and cleans millions of gallons of Harbor water through harnessing the biotic processes of oysters, mussels and eelgrass, and enables neighbourhood fabrics that welcome the water to develop further inland,” she said.
Oysters are said to be one of nature’s best cleaners: each oyster filters about 50 gallons of water a day.
Marine biologist Ray Grizzle told the Associated Press that oysters pump water to feed, “retains any polluted particles, and releases the rest—purified”.
Of course, oysters alone will not be able to completely clean New York’s waters, but could assist in doing so.
And because the purpose of the oysters at Oyster-tecture is to clean toxins in the water, the oysters will never be eaten.
Oysters were once plentiful in the waters of New York. However, by the turn of the 19th century, they died out due to industrial waste, sewage, and the dredging of the harbour to make room for shipping and development.
[via Associated Press and Scape Studio]