I'm Scott Maddrell I'm the new chair
of the school of architecture I've met

many of you already and I look forward
to meeting those that I haven't met.

I want to welcome you thank you so much
for coming out on this on this rainy rainy

night but it's a very very
special lecture from the school.

Annual lecture.

I didn't know Doug which is a real bummer
because I can tell you that of all

the people I've talked to on campus
the faculty the students universally

everybody talks in amazing ways about.

He was clearly made a huge impression
on students on the faculty

I mean the fact that there is such
a strong connection to all the all of his

all the alum that he taught.

You know as educators you know we it's
our accomplishments when we can impact

students and for them to remember you know
as they go out into their careers and

and have an impact on the world in and
come back to you and

say you know you really had a huge impact
on my life and I think Doug certainly did

that he also did that with faculty I mean
I can tell you that all the faculty refer

to his course here it's called Urban
of history history of urban form but

it's equally called the gallants course.

So.

Anyway welcome it's great to
have everybody here I want to

introduce Paul Knight who's going
to say a few words about dog and

talk about the dog Allen Institute and
then I'll introduce Susanna Drake.

A.

Little later six fifteen I guess for
on a tally in time in honor of Doug.

So thank you all for coming this

is terrible weather to try to gather a
bunch of people together in her room and.

So we truly truly appreciate your
attendance to this and we are so

thankful that we're able to commemorate
Doug Allen through this lecture series and

also for
the continuing support from Georgia Tech.

So as many of you know
Doug was truly unique.

He had such a profound impact on every
student that he taught myself included and

it was predominantly through his course
the history of urban form that he had that

impact so while Doug was ill we
were all wondering how can we help

you know what can we do and
I'm proud to say that after a year of

very hard work we've developed
a framework to honor dogs legacy but

more importantly to continue his work.

So I'm proud to formally announce
the creation of the Douglas C.

Allen Institute for the Study of cities
it was a tragedy when Doug passed away.

But it would be a second tragedy to
allow his work to pass away with them.

So we formed this nonprofit to make
sure that that doesn't happen.

He spent thirty five years perfecting
his rhetoric and his course.

And we are very very lucky because
we have all of that material.

In fact the last year he taught
the course he decided to record it

so we have his recordings thirty
three out of forty lectures and so

it's our initial primary focus is
to repackage those lectures and

to refine them and eventually to release
them and to get the great speakers in

the great academics to finish
the remaining seven lectures and

so that's what we're doing in two thousand
and sixteen we're going to start.

Doing that and also we're partnering
with the online journal places.

To produce an annual article and
we've got like forty seven other things

that we want to do so
this requires a ton of resources so

we need your help we are actively seeking

individual donors and corporate sponsors.

And so after this lecture
please come talk to me or

any of the board members that we have
here today so if the board members

of the Institute could please quickly
stand up and just wave your hand so

that people know who you are thank
you all for being here for.

Braving the weather.

So with all of that said we've got a shot
just a very brief short video to play for

you and the first person you're going
to see is actually David Greene

he's one of the founding board members for

Institute wasn't able to be
here because he's in and Cora.

But it's kind of funny because when he
pops up on the screen it's kind of like

Dr Evil or something but anyway please
enjoy the video and thank you again for

coming Hello everyone I want to
introduce the dog Allen Institute and

welcome you to Georgia Tech
tonight we all knew and respected.

He was a phenomenal teacher but
he was also a great and

original thinker in his
career he was able to create

a kind of clarity to the way cities work
that nobody else has been able to do.

I'll never forget when I
was a student in France and

he was taking us around to all of the
great château and he was able to explain

to us how they worked in a way
that was was fascinating but

also intriguing it made you understand
where these things came from the two

thousand year history that brought you to
that point in time and it got to excite.

It about these things it got you.

Interested in a way that made you refine
your career so many of us changed what

we thought we were going to do because
of the impact that it had on our lives

we were transformed and I was lucky
enough to be able to work with him for

over twenty years after those those
days in Paris and I continued to

learn from him as long as I was working
with him both professionally and

academically and it was kind of an amazing
thing because the last time I saw

he taught me things that I didn't know and
didn't understand in the same way that he

did the first time I saw him he
was an unforgettable person and

we believe that this should be continued
and it's not enough to just archive

the work we need to build
a living operational platform for

the continuation of these great ideas this
research and ultimately the knowledge

that will lead us to a greater deeper
understanding of how we live in the world

and in order to do that we're starting
with the creation of a platform

based on his famous class
the history of urban form and

we feel like this gives everybody
an opportunity to understand the basic

tenets that Dunn taught us all
in the past thirty five years so

take a look at the following video and

let's all move forward with
the Doug Allen Institute thank you.

A question that we might ask at the very
beginning of most books on this topic.

What is the city and
it is looking for what is in common

that actually I think
leads me to my definition.

Of a city is the largest manmade
artifact in human history

manifest as a collective work
of architecture built over time.

A city contains two orders
a political order is a framework

of common elements owned
collectively the economic order can.

Those of individually owned parcels and

their occupants within
that collective framework.

The economic order then actually flushes
out this constitutional framework.

And it consists of houses all types and
markets commercial office and

institutional buildings that are not
associated with the constitutional frame

this is more or less permanent and
this is more or

less changeable.

Every city has a constitutional water.

The point of view on this course is
from this intersection looking backwards

to ask ourselves the question
how did we arrive here.

How do we come to who point where we have
an intersection call West Peachtree and

this.

Such that's that's pretty clear actually.

That.

Describing the cities.

So there are few people actually that
would fit this lecture as well as

Susanna Drake Suzanna as a very unique
practice deal and Studios which

she founded in two thousand and five she
has a masters degree in architecture and

a masters degree in landscape architecture
which is really is very actually unique

you wouldn't think so but it actually
is and I think it really has influenced

the trajectory that she's taken
with it with her with her practice.

Her her firm is working on many very
interesting projects currently.

One of them that I saw
presented I guess three or

four years ago in New York the Queensway
project which is very related to the to

the Beltway project here
in Atlanta in that it's a.

Rail to Trails project where
you take you know a band and

kind of urban infrastructure and
turn it into an earlier park and

open public space and it was a study
at that time it's now actually being

implemented in New York in Queens and
that's just one of many projects that

she's doing that is really
transforming cities.

I also.

Lesson I saw Suzanne a lecture she
was describing in presenting some

other projects she was doing in a lot
of public projects in New York and and

I sort of instantly bonded because we
shared experiences of how difficult it is

to work through processes and work through
agencies in the bureaucracy to get these

projects built but in the end you know
that we also kind of shared a real

commitment to the fact that these kind of
projects really impacts cities they change

people's lives they create public spaces
and make lasting impacts on cities and

I think Suzanne is firm is kind
of at the forefront of that

at the scale of building at the scale
of urban infrastructure and

at the scale of cities So with that I'd
like to welcome Suzanna to the school

thanks.

Introduction than.

The legacy of Doug because
that that framework really

describes a lot of what I do and what
I'm going to be talking about today so

I feel like this is a common expression of
his legacy actually and I met him a couple

of years ago when I was town visiting and
he was just such a wonderful man so

I I really I'm very honored so
thank you for for having me here.

So my lecture today is called creation
of twenty first century public

infrastructure beauty economics
politics and ecology and

it starts with a little bit of a political
bent but but I want to it's really all

about my practice of bringing together
ecology infrastructure community

economy water and
climate with this this firm and

the reason I call it a new paradigm is not
because it's an interdisciplinary practice

it's because we've we've taken
some novel approaches to actually

get our work done and I like so we make
it up in that we make it happen and

I'll describe a little bit about that
when I get to the actual projects.

But we're going to start
with with politics and

thinking about the shaping of the American
landscape so Thomas Jefferson set

up the sale of land to run the country
basically we needed money to to

make the country run so
he set up the when ordinance act of

seventy seven hundred eighty five I should
say he signed the land ordinance Act which

parcelled off the United States
into this giant grid landscape.

And a hundred years later Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act and

the important difference between
those two policies is that

the land ordinance act
made land available for

sale whereas the Homestead Act
was set up lines of credit and

you could buy smaller parcels of land and
you could also be a woman or you could be

African-American you just had to be a head
of household so it was an important

differentiation in the progress of
the development of our country but but

you can see how this landscape has been
affected by policy on a broader scale and

I want to bring that down to
the urban scale as we move forward.

So the next president when you think about
or large policy issue want you to consider

is the New Deal where twenty
billion dollars was spent in

one nine hundred thirty four dollars on
the development of the Works Progress.

Administration there were there were parks
that were built there were incredible

civic buildings and also infrastructure so

the Tennessee Valley Authority was was.

Established to bring power jobs and flood
control projects to rural communities and

you know I've been studying this since I
was a student at Harvard actually been

studying this for my whole life because my
father is a geophysicist but I've had this

fascination with infrastructure and
the impact on the landscape so

this is a drawing I did back back on as of
the just looking at dams in the southwest

and the kind of massive
ecological change that happens so

infrastructure as a term was established
in the World War two era in reference

to military logistical operations that
didn't exist as a term before that and

General Eisenhower who established
the federal highway system invested twenty

five billion dollars into our
national system of highways and

called it the Federal Highway
defense system so

again this is a political
issue it's getting a giant.

When scape infrastructure project
built as a defense system so

it required getting the whole
nation to be for it and

it happened in the postwar period when
you know the country was was wounded but

it was asked so
you know in addition to being a defense or

being a carriage to as
a defense project for

bringing being able to get troops around
the city or around the country star.

But it was also a very large developments
I don't say well I will say scheme

development strategy for that led to.

Really the development of the suburb and
it's still often considered as

a development mechanism
by some politicians.

Well and as you can see from the examples
that I showed you know infrastructure

isn't historically sexy because
it has been you know designed for

sort of a singular use but.

Well you've.

Clicked the OK got it but
actually the year I was born

nine hundred sixty five this is my
fiftieth birthday which was last week.

Not very sexy president John
it would be Johnson but

with a really wonderful wife.

Ladybird actually they're
both really wonderful

they signed the Highway Beautification Act
which actually did create

sexy infrastructure to
reduce the good words and

start to think about how we could
improve our national landscape.

So I've been thinking about some of these
ideas and this is a project that we

did for a competition in Montreal
thinking about the how you get from

the airport into the center of the city so
it was an infrastructure project but

we turned it into an urban design project.

So it's really taking Montreal as
a microcosm of a design for thinking about

how the infrastructure of Montreal relates
to the entire North American continent the

big.

So we're really using
infrastructure to make cities and

you know when when the highway system
was developed it wasn't initially

intended to go through cities but it does
and one of the other sort of significant

info intersections that I
deal with a lot is also.

The relationship between those roads and
watershed and in one thousand nine hundred

seventy two Nixon signed the Clean Water
Act and a clean and the Clean Air Act and

that's had a fundamental influence on
my work because of consent decrees that

the federal government now has on
a number of cities across the country.

But you know the real implementation.

A lot of my work has had to do
with the vision of the mare.

Of Mayor Bloomberg who
created plan Y C which

really gave me incredible inspiration
I can't say I did a lot of work for

the Bloomberg mistake
ministration directly but

my work was really bolstered by it.

There are seven hundred seventy two U.S.
cities that have combined sewer systems

and Thomas Crapper did not design
the flush toilet he popularized it

to such an extent that there needed to
be a reinvention of our sanitary sewer

systems and so
the sanitary sewers were combined with

the storm sewers in France and

and that technology then was
translated to the United States and

what's happening now is we have this
this these combined sewer overflows

happening the sanitary sewer
combining with storm sewage and

flowing into our waterways and you can
see how this works we get the sewage from

domestic commercial industrial uses where
sources they're going into a big pipe but

the storm drain is also
combining with that and

that overflow is going into our waterways
and causing ongoing pollution So

this first project I'm going to talk
about is called the sponge park and

our sponge parks are intended to actually
soak up some of that storm water that

you see outside today it's a good lecture
for today right salting of water but

soak up that storm water so that doesn't
go into the combined sewer system so

the canal was formerly

a swamp you can see how the hydrology
has been affected over time it was

a very different landscape
a couple hundred years ago but

in order to facilitate commerce and
industry it's been channelized and it's

actually a very dirty landscape now it's a
brownfield it's an E.P.A. Superfund site.

What we're trying to do is manage
the water from this whole.

Watershed in what we call
a sponge park and the reason

we call it a sponge park is that I didn't
want to go into a neighborhood and say I'm

building wetlands in your backyard because
that's just not an urban notion and

I thought you know I laughed off
the stage so we came up with the idea of

the sponge park and everybody understands
what a sponge does it absorbs water so

what we're doing is creating
a landscape that absorbs water and

this is kind of where my idea about
the we make it up and we make it happen.

Concept came from because we
didn't have a project necessarily

we started working with a local community
group called the quantised Conservancy and

had the idea of creating a plan for
soaking up this water but

we didn't have any money and so
I partnered with them and started applying

for grants and we got our first grant from
the New York State Council on the arts and

with that we applied recreates
master planning documents or

some some initial design documents and

then those managed to catch
the attention of city council who

ultimately provided some funding for
the construction of a pilot project

we acquired for another big grant from
the New England interstate water pollution

control commission and got the money
to do the construction drawings and

then we partnered with another community
agency or community organization called

the quantised canal Community Development
Corporation now none of the public and

community groups really have any money
the money is all over on the other side or

on the the your right side.

But we applied for
a grant from the Department of

Environmental Conservation to develop
some educational materials and and

some workforce training and
then we applied for

another grant from the environmental
facilities Corporation which gave us

the additional I think five hundred
thousand dollars to build this first.

Project so it was a coordination of
a bunch of different community groups that

really hated each other and a bunch of
different agencies that weren't getting

along through a lot of different funding
sources that were all in different places

and if there are any students in
the room and I have final reviews but

please tell them it's really important
to know how to write as well as design

because we wrote all these grants and
we could present our arguments

both verbally and visually and
it was really strong and

we got all this money to build
this first pilot project so.

This is the GO ON US you could see that
this is a really degraded edge that

actually was a boat house in that shipping
container behind the corrugated metal

fence and that was the access point for
a boating club.

That exist so long ago on a spit you can
see here's the problem all this water

flows over the streets and with these
increasingly strong storms it's a big

problem and there's nowhere for
that water to go and

it ends up at the street ends and it
brings with it a lot of detritus and dirt.

And this is actually raw sewage
sitting on top of the canal from

combined sewer overflows So it's really
a toxic site and this is in the middle of

a densely urban community in New York City
this is not a third world country

this is kind of ridiculous that we have
the situation so we did a lot of work in

section looking at how we could improve
the Permian billeted of this ground and

you know remember this is toxic ground
where we have pollution going down

in plumes one hundred fifty feet from cold
gasification plants that used to exist

there so really trying to improve the
hydrology but also clean up the site and

create a sort of more continuous landscape
that can be this absorptive buffer

but I think one of the fundamental things
that was different about it was that it

was trying to be green infrastructure and
public space at the same time so

we're really trying to improve access for
city planning.

Ideas about having a continuous esplanade
along the edge of the canal but

also make it a productive landscape but
one of the things that ran counter system

plannings vision of having a continuous
Esplanade is that this is an industrial

site so there are a lot of buildings
that exist right that go all the way

up to the canals edge because that's where
the exchange of goods happened right so

we thought well maybe that's actually an
opportunity an urban design opportunity to

create what we called an urban Promina
had that had green infrastructure kind

of threading back into the neighborhood
and connecting to some of the existing

parks and open spaces that existed in
the area and you can see you know we

didn't actually intend to make this yellow
brick road that just demonstrates serve

how the green infrastructure was or
threat around the community.

So.

Scott alluded to New York being
complicated and it's really complicated

I was going to make a joke
like pulling out our hair but.

It's it's it's it's just
it's really amazing so.

The the sediment underneath the canal is
controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers

and now the E.P.A. Superfund the first
five feet of soil in this area is

controlled by the State the Department of
Environmental Conservation The green is

controlled by the Parks Department the
surface of the ground is it's a road so

it's controlled by the Department of
Transportation the water that flows over

the ground is controlled by the Department
of Environmental Protection which is

a city agency and
then because it's a waterfront site.

The Department of city planning.

Basically regulates how you can design

that water's edge down to how
many benches you have and

whether the benches have backs and
how much tree canopy you have and.

It's really kind of remarkable how
regulated the spaces even the shade over

the water is controlled by the Department
of Environmental Conservation there

are two hundred permits that you have to
get for pretty much any waterfront and

we ended up building this through the
Department of Environmental Protection and

had to get the approval of
fourteen different agency heads

when we got the drawings to ninety percent
but I'm happy to say we're actually moving

it forward and I like to joke that
we had eight years of approvals

in eight weeks of construction because
we're really building a very fast and

one of the lessons that I learned in
this process was it's really important

to actually do all that planning before
because if you build it in a modular way

then they can't say no Along the way so
I'll talk about that in so

we also put suggested these cultural
developments along the canal and

we're working across
the way on this project for

an arts center in this old
industrial building but

back to the pilot project this is
the first sponge Park Street and

what we did was we actually
calculated the amount

of water that we needed to handle for
all of the street ends and

the one that we're operating on and
second Street actually has the most and

it was deemed to be one of the least dirty
so it seemed like a good place to start.

So we worked within fifty
foot public public.

Access way and this is I guess the issue
of the constitutional landscape

this is the this is a place where we
actually had authority to be working and

that's where we're operating
one of the other interesting

things of working in New York
about working in New York is.

Dealing with the public design
Commission which is another approval.

There is a body that's appointed
in part by the mare and part by.

By the fine arts Federation to oversee
everything in the public realm that has to

do with public design and so
they were concerned about.

Our streetscape materials and so
what we did was to do this analysis of

the existing conditions the cobble
stones when the finishes went in

when the asphalt went in and
when the Green Streets were built and

showed you know that there
really isn't a great pattern.

But you know there are some common
materials and so what we did was use that

to make an argument that our park was
just a redistribution of those materials.

So here is.

What we're doing basically
with this first park.

So there are.

Existing Green Streets that we're taking
out because the water can't flow into mom.

And they were putting in these
uplands streets wells so

that was that connection back into
the neighborhood thread back in and

then we did in a modular way
it's all precast concrete and

we've built these cells again so
it could be built very quickly.

And then there's this integrated sidewalk
and sedimentation basin if any of you

have built any green infrastructure
projects you know the sediment is a really

big issue to manage and then we have
a pedestrian path with an integrated stand

filter so this is providing access
over to the GO ON US directors but

launch which is being built by by
others and then there's a drain.

So when it rains you know the upline
streets wells will take some of the water

but then most of it's going to go down and
go into that basin which also evenly

distributes it into all of the cells.

So then the plant the soil in the plants
absorb the water plants grow.

It's made up of transpiration But
then we get a really big rain so

we designed it for a one point two
inch storm which was the state.

Rule.

And but

we get a really big rain we added serve
extra capacity within that sand filter.

That will help to clean the water and

then it'll go into the canal so
we had an existing.

Drain that we could tie into so that was
one comment we didn't need a long way.

So you know it's basically a new
piece of infrastructure for

New York City and I'm happy to say you
know we were originally planned this for

around the quantised canal and there
are a few sites where this can exist.

But the D.O.T. called me the other day and
said well how much of a cost because

they're looking at implementing
it everywhere in New York City so

with Grant funding working with
a community group you know doing

this on a shoestring we've somehow managed
to create a new piece of infrastructure

that the Department of
Environmental Protection is accepting as

a new piece of infrastructure for
the city so it's it's a pretty sight.

So this is actually this is this is it in
construction this was October twenty first

you see this so in the meanwhile the D.P.
and the E.P.A.

Superfund people are having this big fight
over what happens in the Go on us and so

the E.P.A. administrator comes out and
is freaking out because we're so

far along because I think he thought
it was going to a normal D.P.

project and it was going take a really
long time to build and words like get

built quick before they say you know so
yeah so we just we just did the planting

I don't have great pictures of that yet
but this is a couple weeks ago.

So the contractor sends me these pictures
every day it's really exciting but

as of right near my office I can
just go down and look at it I'm so.

Sorry there are seventy two
hundred miles of bridges and

elevated highways that
run through US cities

six hundred sixty six miles of elevated
structures run through New York City and

that's highways and trains I was the.

Urban Design fellow for
the design trust for pub.

Expats and we did a year long study and

just published a book on honest work
looking at it was a project called

the under the elevated project looking
at what we can do with these spaces and

we established seven
different type policies for

areas around the city that we could
transform so we had Bridge Park recharge

car cluster clover and train and we tried
to come up with a sort of geographic

distribution across the boroughs there
on a lot of elevated Staten Island so

we did skip Staten Island but
you know some of these are very sort of

ubiquitous type like the cloverleaf It's
everywhere in the United States looking at

improving the ecology we're not going
to turn that into a pedestrian zone but

we can at least make it a better a better
ecological situation landing trying to

improve some of these under under bridge
areas as thresholds to different parts

of the city the train dealing with some
of the noise issues the sticks and

some of the lighting that can be so
dangerous and then car some of

the broader elevated areas thinking
about how we might repurposed that space

park you know programming some of the
spaces under the be elevated to get more

people out span we had a a electric
charging taxi charging station and

then cluster was a place where it all
these different modes of infrastructure

coming together and just trying to really
make it more and of into more of a place

with some way finding we looked
strategically at where the elevated

infrastructure was aging and thought about
how we might capitalize on that to get

some first projects built this project is
looking at the go on a six Press way and

thinking about how to repurpose that space
it's just really inefficiently used space

so we thought Well first thing we can do
is think about some green infrastructure

maybe pop up green infrastructure and
also maybe some spaces where artists could

you know do things that you
can do in neighborhood.

Make a mess do welding do things
that that are being displaced from

other sort of post-industrial
neighborhoods and

really turn it into something that is
more of an amenity for the community.

And so this is actually an installation of
a more permanent kind of art studio space

and this area is actually next to
these giant warehouses that are being

turned into this new kind of tech
center so the juxtaposition of

the programs is actually
pretty pretty good and useful.

So the other one I mentioned was Broadway
junction where we have these different

pieces of infrastructure
coming together so

just really looking at how you know this
space that was formerly forgotten could

become this kind of new sort of reclaimed
public space it's a beautiful area

surprisingly but
it's it really can have a magic but

it needs to be transformed so
the other issue that

happens in these under elevated spaces
is that you get a lot of storm water and

I did this work before I got the
fellowship with with the design trust I

got a grant from the D.P. and actually
another grant from know to look at.

How to manage the storm water and there
are these things called scuppers which

are the downspouts coming off of highways
and right now you know a lot of that water

will just fall into spaces like you just
saw So what I want to do is make sure we

call the whole system these basins that
will take that water and hold it and

be kind of planters So this also has
an integrated sedimentation basin and

then a planted zone so it's a BIOS well
but it's a modular BIOS Well this is

one of the people in my office actually
building it in construction and

and then this is the other model
that we made with Gabe Ians So

one of the interesting things that
happens when you build habitat.

City is that you build habitat and
city and

you end up with some little friends and
this muskrat moved into our.

Site or our bias well which would have
been fine except that we monitor all

of these projects the sponge monitoring
the hold projects we're monitoring what

we're trying to figure out is how much
water is going in how much water is coming

out how dirty it is going in how clean
it is coming out simple except when

the muskrat starts eating your monitoring
monitoring equipment is a problem so

it turns out that outfall on
our on our brightest well

was like the exact angle
of a a must lair and so

we basically built this muskrat condo and
he was really psyched he moved in but

he was leaving candy wrappers and he she
I don't know what it but it was kind

of messy and the we haven't introduced
Bobcat's yet that's just there for

scale but we're trying to figure
out like what do you do with this.

So there are thirty five million U.S.

residents who live within one hundred
meters of a four lane highway and

when I first started my practice
again I applied for a grant and

I got a grant from the New York State
Council me Art said his vision for

capping the Brooklyn Queens Expressway
this is actually pretty close to my

my office and my house I'm sort of
over here in Brooklyn Heights and

this is Cobble Hill in Carroll Gardens but
it is vision for transforming this into

an open space that could connect
into Brooklyn Bridge Park and

really create a more continuous
kind of green space in Brooklyn and

in one of the arguments I made for was
was an economic one looking at you know

even if we didn't cap the trench we just
put in three hundred fifty trees we could

generate a fifty million dollars gain
over ten years in oxygen production and

pollution control and shade value and
and the recycling of water

you know there there seem to be
tremendous potential so so but in.

These landscapes you know they were they
were designed or they were implemented

by sort of made possible by by Moses and
you know his intention I think

in the beginning at least was was
positive to bring parkways and parks and

playgrounds to the city but the reality
tended to be more like this and

more like to be Q.E. that you just saw
before and you know I think a lot of.

The message that he sent out to
people was it was a bit of a bait and

switch promising these parkways and and

this is actually a view of the Q E And and

he had this hotel room in the box or
hotel which is in Brooklyn Heights and

was looking down on this site and
I just want to read this and

he Robert Moses spent a lot of time
looking down at it watching the cranes and

derricks and earth moving machines that
looked like toys far below him moving

about the giant trench being cut through
mile after mile of densely packed houses

a big black figure against the sunset in
the late afternoon like a giant gazing

down on the giant road he was molding
now I really appreciate the power

of what Moses was able to do but I also
I'm now trying to a million some of those

impacts on neighborhoods because you know
and Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens and

Southside Williamsburg he was really
cutting through these neighborhoods and

so I'm currently working
with city council people and

with the borough president's office
on a project called B.Q. green.

Which is more slightly more
real project where we like to

think that it's more real but we're trying
to do is break down some of these physical

boundaries that exist because of the
infrastructure not only the highways but

also the bridge landings and the fences
the area that we're working in was built

in one thousand nine hundred fifty and
it's a predominantly Latino

neighborhood it's it's an area
where there is a lot of gang high.

And Diana Raina who really
sponsored our work there

was a little girl in the playground and

got caught in the middle of a gang fight
between the Puerto Rican gangs were on

one side and the Dominican gangs on
the other side and what we want to do is

actually build this park to like
a race some of those boundaries and

that's been her vision since she was
a little girl she's almost my age and

we're hoping to get it done before
our children are grandparents but

we'll see things take a long time in
New York City but you know what we're

really looking at some of these public
some of the public health issues that

asthma rates the physical activity rates
in the area you can see you know physical

activity rates in our area really low
we need to have more open space and

then neighborhood pop neighborhood poverty
poverty there's not a lot of mobility for

people in that area.

And so you know these are issues
that we're considering

the Southside Williamsburg area around
the trench is currently an active

recreation does or you have to go really
far in order to get to a playing field so

we had a lot of community meetings and
community engagement this is something Ana

me trying to figure out
what people wanted and

what they said was We want playing
fields we want to have a place where we

can play baseball we were going
to play soccer kick it around and

then also have some other amenities for
the community.

So we looked at the feasibility we did a
study where we worked with Sam Schwartz as

office we worked with H.R. and A on
the economics of it and we every worked

with wiring or engineering to figure out
you know what's actually possible and

what we determined was that there were
three blocks where it's actually fairly

simple to capture the trench.

And that was because we could
have an intermediate structure

we're trying to do is actually maintain
the grade with the existing streets so

it actually feels like
a continuous landscape.

But we also have to bring the site
up to federal highway standards so

we have to have sixteen feet of clearance
so you know it's a challenge so

we determined that we could
build actually this park and

leave part of it open and
it's not actually a tunnel

which is an important thing also because
then we didn't have to have a lot of.

Very specific venting but

you can see how that would really
transform the neighborhood.

The way we're getting back
to the economics of it so.

There are these bridges
that go over the trench and

they're at the end of their life span they
were built in one thousand nine hundred

fifty they need to be replaced and so what
we're suggesting is that we want to just

replace those at a cost of ten million
dollars each which the city would have to

spend and create and
be able to Qana me by getting grants or

getting federal money in to pay for
the space in between.

For one hundred million dollars project
you could completely transform this

neighborhood and turn this passive
open space into an active amenity for

the community.

So there are twenty million or
twenty million or twenty thousand miles

of rail trails in the United States and
the Queensway is adding another three and

a half it's amazing that this landscape
actually exists in New York City we're

adding forty seven acres of new
park space to New York working

closely with the Trust for Public Land and
friends of the Queensway So

this is the existing condition and
it's you know it's overgrown but

it's also incredibly beautiful in some
parts the first piece that we're doing is

this metropolitan hub section but you can
see who is broken it down into sections

because it really reflects a lot
of different neighborhoods.

Nine and Ten are the most diverse
community boards in the city and

there are three hundred to.

Any two people sort of three hundred
twenty two thousand people that

live within a twenty minute walk or
a mile of the Queensway.

We looked at the programming and
establishing pretty diverse programming

across the site and one of the things that
was really important was looking at these

the northern passage and the Southern
passage having places that are really

have less program passing through
because of the Jason cities to

some existing housing so
the Queensway exists it has a number of

different spatial conditions the southern
part is kind of like the High Line but

the middle part feels like it's
going through a ravine and

what's happening there is you know
the train had to stay flat and so

they cut through the Wisconsin glacier.

To create of train line and so rather than

it's not actually going into a whole it's
actually you know cutting through a hill.

And then on the northern part it's on
a bit of an embankment to be up and

away from the community speak and see
you know it's an overgrown landscape so

what we have to do is go in and do a lot
of editing and make it accessible and

really build upon some of the neighboring
programs that are already working really

well so
it's it's a subtle project but you.

Just in condition and actually that
that truck was just left there it's not

like it's actually doing work for
us but I'm like the muskrat.

So what we want to do is transform that
landscape into this this is the same

landscape and what we're trying to do is
make it a landscape that can be productive

that can absorb the storm water from
this whole sort of basin but also

you know I talked about the Wisconsin
glacier we want to reflect.

That geologic history but

also the cultural history because
a lot of that glacial to.

Hill was actually used to
make the walls that defined

different farms back when the Dutch
settled this land so we want to express

that in the design of the landscape we
also want to capitalize on the fact that

we have this existing landscape
capitalize on the neglect There's

a joke in landscape architecture you know
when's the best time to plant a tree

twenty years ago but
our trees are like fifty years old so so

we're in a really good place because you
know we're going to be able to you know

create spaces where we can you could go
and be in the shade and watch your kids

play baseball if we got rid of the
Japanese knotweed and the poison ivy so

so here this is the condition I was
talking about before where we have these

homes and there was some resistance
from the homeowners who lived next to

Queens where they were worried that
there be people in their backyard and.

That that might be providing more access
but what were we created these drawings

to show that there would actually be
a buffering and that it would actually be

cleaning up that landscape a lot and that
there would be more people in there but

that the people would be moving through
this section fairly quickly through

a whole series of community meetings it
was determined that we would have a fast

lane for bikes and
a slower lane for the pedestrians.

And also that we would be transforming
you know some of the places that

are already park space for
a year round use

the Queensway connects into
Forest Park but currently.

Most of the people I think seventy
five percent of the people that visit

Forest Park go there by car because
they can't get there by you know

been any safe way so
this will be fixing that problem.

The first piece that we.

Doing is located right next to
the Metropolitan expeditionary

Learning Academy so we're engaging with
the kids to help with the design and

also thinking about how they might use
the landscape and study the landscape over

time which is really exciting to me and
then in the southern

part of the site it's one of the least
well it's one of the worst served for

public open space so we're creating this
new place where you know there's one

school right next to another school right
next to the Queensway that doesn't have.

A playground or any open space so
at lunch because of the Board of Ed rules

they take the kids and they walk them
around the block it's so sad and so

those kids will be able to go up on this
landscape so it's supposed to be a place

for real New Yorkers it's you
know it's is supposed to be.

A new open space that create this better
connectivity for this whole neighborhood.

So forty percent of the world's
population lives within

one hundred kilometers of a coast and
in two thousand and

ten we partnered with an architecture
firm called Architecture Research Office

on arrow on the moment rising currents
exhibition and there were five different

design teams that were tasked with looking
at different areas of New York Harbor and

figuring out how we could prepare for
a big storm and sea level rise and

we projected projections that we'd
have six feet of sea level rise

over the next eighty years but our team
was looking at lower Manhattan and

I think it's really interesting
to look at the city over time and

see how the sixteen fifty water
line was dramatically different

than the one nine hundred sixty and then
you'll see in the current water line but

you know we've transformed
it to facilitate trade and

exchange because the shallows
that protected the original

water's edge you know weren't really
good for getting the goods from these.

Big boats on to the edge so we harden
the edge and we built out and we put

you slips in we cut in and made that
the place of exchange actually this is

exchange place was called Exchange Place
because that's where the goods

were actually exchanged but
you know over time.

You know the ships got larger and
we developed these finger

piers of the ships could come in and
offload the goods on to the piers but

when with the advent of containerized
shipping all that left the city and

so you had all this vacant land so
by two thousand and ten the highest and

best use of the water's edge was
actually for recreational and

residential use but looking back
to this map from eight hundred

forty five by feel a I think it's
interesting to look at the light green

area because it looks pretty similar to
that six hundred forty five water line.

And I want you to notice that there's
also these white or green areas which

are the this is the hydrology
New York City and

you know as we looked at our value at risk
in terms of where the sea level was going

to be rising to and where an eighteen foot
category two storm surge would go there

seemed to be a correlation funny that
right so this was the high ground and

is still the high ground where
the water doesn't go in a big storm so

we from that looked at our existing we
start mapping we looked at the existing

sea walls the sea level rise by
a twenty one hundred a Category two

storm inundation line and
then also the location of the existing

combined sewer overflows
back to the gone astray and

thought about how going to come in and
water is also going to need to go out and

how do we develop a system that we called
the new urban ground to manage that so

really we're working in this zone.

Is in all those sort of
lighter gray areas to.

And redesigned that landscape so
we created level one streets for

absorption basically took all the
infrastructure out of the street bed and

stuck it into waterproof vaults
underneath the sidewalk My thought was

Well I was ripping up the street and that
seems kind of silly why don't we put it in

the sidewalk or put it in water who falls
with with hatches so you could actually

open up the hatch and get in there and
when the infrastructure breaks or

becomes obsolete you just sort of swap
it out you threaded in and out and

then what that does is actually open up
the street to become new permeable ground

and twenty eight percent of
New York City is paved with roads so

I thought well that's an opportunity
to create this new porous landscape so

we created these level two streets for
distribution and collections so

these had a greater prosody and also
these channels for taking more water and

then also these Level three streets for
protection and these had larger

retention basins in them and I'm actually
now redesigning twenty five blocks of

New Orleans where we're exploring this
kind of technology to hold that water so

Momus coming true down there.

But the idea was to create this whole
screen St system we also developed

a new six foot hardened edge so we raised
the level of the grade and then had

water from parks and freshwater wetlands
and salt marshes that would help to absorb

some of the force of the large waves to
create this entire resilience system so

along the Hudson what we
did was we created a.

Sort of crenellated pattern
of development blocks and

landscape blocks that
would be more resilient.

And also that would enable.

Lighter craft to come into
the city it's kind of

threading the landscape
into the urban plan

down at the battery we had this whole
what we called the battery break.

Or these textile filled sacks that creek
could create new barrier islands and

again you could have small boats go in and
out of these new.

Constructed wetlands and then over on
the East Side create just something called

the East River Esther and breakwater
again like Clay Shaw references.

But here you know it's basically a large
a larger bermed area that would protect

the upland buildings and and

then this outbound landscape that could
become a new kind of urban open space and

within that we also had sponge slip so
if you had periodic inundation from large

storm surge these landscapes would be able
to hold that water so we've transformed

a slip from a place of economic exchange
to a place of ecological exchange and

using plants that can actually withstand
a periodic inundation of salt water

to create a new resilient city so that's
what we did in two thousand and ten and

it influenced a lot of policy
decisions actually along the way but

you know governments move really
slowly until you have a big storm and

then they move faster so
we had this big storm Sandy and

the water went everywhere we said it
was going to go and it was such a.

Sort of made a couple of stupid
comments about like I told you

kind of comments in the press
which wasn't so smart but but but

you know when when it's turning off
the lights in Lower Manhattan for for

three weeks and causing thirteen billion
dollars worth of damage it's you know it

was kind of worth paying attention
to this work that we were doing and

saying you know what we need
to change things faster so

you know in the aftermath of Sandy
you know they were prepared for

these gigantic engineered systems and I'm
not anti engineering in any way shape or

form I'm just looking for
a new kind of hybrid solutions so

you know these were proposals for
gigantic floodgates and

you know there may be a place for that but
my concern is that traditional me.

Of engineering work until they don't you
know there's sort of a projection out

a certain amount of time and

so what I wanted to think about
in that period right after

this was even before Sandy was
how we could create what ones and

systems like our battery breakwater that
would grow in strength over time and

but I also wanted to think about or
was thinking about for

property values in New York
because one of the issues that

you have with green infrastructure is
that no one wants to maintain it and

if you don't maintain it it's
not going to work right and

we don't really want to maintain our
parks either it's a big issue so

I thought well maybe we need to be
thinking about financial mechanisms for

doing this so looked at
the property values in New York and

thought what if we created
as zoning transfer of.

Where developers and some of the more
expensive areas could actually get

a credit or build taller in
order to finance relocation

of people away from those waterfront
edges that are more vulnerable and

the creation of a new kind of landscape
along those edges that can help protect

the upland resources so I presented
this at a conference where I had like

the head of the Nature Conservancy sitting
there I had this really one of the heads

of one of the biggest real estate
families in New York City saying they're

they're both like nodding and smiling
Yes OK That's the point right let's figure

out a system that works for everybody.

And protects the people.

So another kind of financial mechanism
that we're working with is called marshes

where working on a wetland mitigation bank
it's the first one in New York State and

what we're doing is actually
restoring this landscape and

then developers can actually buy cry.

It's in.

In this landscape so if you're harming
one place you can actually go and

fix another place which
sounds terrible but

it's actually a good thing because
you're you're really restoring some

more significant ecological areas and
you know the other areas

that are potentially getting damaged
may be places that are more urban and

can be more more dense and may not
have as great an ecological value so

and all of that gets determined by
a whole fleet of scientists and

regulators to figure out who
who's getting what credit and

how much the credits are worth but
we're transforming that landscape and

then we're also working on some of
the states' efforts of of transforming

some of these edge landscapes to make
them more resilient in Nassau County so

we're you know we're doing a lot of
this rebuilding work because it's really

a global problem and you know when
you look at these these landscapes

it's not you know they're different
type ologies for different areas and

so you know after moma but
before Sandy we started thinking about

how this applied to these global area and
in particular the economies

developing mangrove ecology mangrove
maritime forest ecologies and

then also looking at some of
the economies of different areas such

as the river delta where you
have an agricultural economy

that is going to be impacted by the
inundation of salt water over the next.

Forty fifty years so
we need to be proactive about how that

landscape is being managed and
start to we're proposing some different

forms of agricultural production
that can be based on a more

salient constitution of water but

we looked at the what how these impacted.

The sea level rise would impact
different global economies from.

Industry to finance to.

Informal settlements in different parts
of the world and in particular focused on

Miami and Miami Beach thinking
about how we might transform that

landscape with a new kind of beach
landscape or rebuild mangrove ecology

a new kind of bermed area to protect
some of the upland resources.

So I have two more projects and
this one these get away from the coast but

there are thirty million acres roads and
parking lots in the U.S.

and to give you to put that in perspective
Georgia is thirty seven million acres so

parking lots equal the mass of your state

Florida is thirty seven
point five million acres.

So.

And product.

So.

It's so much easier to not work in New
York City so we've been doing this park.

In St Louis where we park in
LOT This was a parking lot next to

the public television and public radio
station Sheldon arts center is down along

this this and created a new public.

That is a permeable landscape and
it's the public media Commons you know

because it's it's really creating this new
place where public television or where.

Different sorts can come together and

the whole area is intended to be
an expression of that idea inspired

by some of the ideas of Marshall Burma and
I collaborated with one of my G.S.T.

classmates Jay Berman
who you may remember.

On this project and created this place for

the these screens are constantly
projecting the material

from the public television station their
broadcasts from the public public radio

it's become this incredibly vibrant open
space and the landscape is really supposed

to reflect the indigenous
landscape of the area.

It's used for a lot of different types of
functions are created the stage which just

must be a public sort of.

Place where you can make public
pronouncements and these are these little

individual video screens where you can
have a more one on one relationship with

some kind of video experience and it's
it's used all the time it's used at night

it's used twenty four seven it's
used all times of the year.

We designed the planting so that it could
have a lot of interest year round and

you can see some wall plantings this
was actually kind of a surprise

to the architects and so
we developed this these vines that

would grow on it because they
didn't expect it to be so tall.

And.

The landscape kind of evolved
as the buildings were going in.

And I'm happy to or I'm proud to say
that we were on the cover of landscape

architecture last month for this project
and got a National Award for it.

So I think this project took you know
two years as opposed to the sponge

work which took.

So this is the last project
I'm going to talk about and

this goes back to my land ordinance
credit and you back to Jefferson and.

And and Lincoln but will alternate
forms of food production change or

views of farming we were asked by
James Beaver architects to help them and

the James Beard Foundation to
help them build a green wall and

Jim called me and said I don't want to
build a green wall for the expo and

I said Well I think green walls are stupid
because you know I just it's seemed so.

Antithetical to how plants want to grow
other than vines growing up a wall but

to actually have plants growing
in containers on a wall but

then I started to think about it the whole
theme of the expo was American food

systems and I'd done a lot of reading
about reading of Wendell Berry and

the credit score I thought a lot
about the American landscape and

agricultural systems I thought
this is a real opportunity and

the idea was to make a vertical farm and
so we started with the idea that we have

a grid an architectural grid this kind of
similar to our land ordinance grid but

the geographic systems that interrupt that
grid even in that first slide that you saw

of the American landscape so there's
geographical systems the the waterways and

the hills and the topography that
make the landscape different and

make it not such a simple created
you know unified landscape

actually also add flavor to the foods that
are harvested in those different areas and

they also affect the growth of
different plants in those areas and so

they're all the chefs now that
are coming out with you know

their their geographically
oriented foods and

there's a lot of kind of more local
focus on local agriculture so

we wanted to reflect that
in the design of this.

This wall and
this is actually this is it this is the.

Farm it was from May until October
it actually just came down and

this isn't a rendering this is
actually real and so we we.

Were we had fifty different crops
that created six thousand pounds

of vegetables per week we
avoided things like squash and

things in my family people's ads.

You know we have like kale and
and there are peppers and

strawberries and some herbs and and it's
pretty wild It actually looked this is

actually in October I took this picture so
it looked good the entire summer and

it was producing vegetables the entire
time it was so exciting but

the system that we use was this vertical
zip pro tower that was invented by this

guy Nate story who's an agronomist
out of the University of Wyoming so

it's not designed to be a decorative
wall system it was designed to be

an agricultural system which I think
is really interesting it's hydroponic.

And has this kind of foam and
a little wick thing but

this is actually some kale
growing in one of his systems and

I went out to Laramie Wyoming and
man him and

met this farmer named Hayden Christianson
who was using his technology and

one of the things that's really
important about this and

mentioned I think is that it
enables small scale farming and

Hayden Christianson was this kid he's
probably like twenty twenty years in its

early twenty's and he grew up on
a farm family you know one of ten and

want to keep farming but he can't go out
and get his quarter section of land and

he's you know but
he had this little greenhouse and

in this greenhouse he had
the Zip towers growing and.

It was an incredibly
productive greenhouse and

he could actually make a living
doing small scale farming and

part of the reason that it could be so
profitable is the.

Tower that's actually a water source he
could take the Zip tower put in the back

of his truck and bring it to the Whole
Foods and plug it into one of these towers

so you could go to the Whole Foods was my
punch line you could go to Whole Foods and

you could clip your kale
directly off of the tower and

the reason that significant is you're
getting really fresh vegetables but

also because it eliminates packaging and

apparently small scale farmers spend sixty
percent of their overhead on packaging.

So I learned a lot during this project but

the other really funny story and
this is with great blue a punchline but

the other really funny story that Nate
told me was that he has a huge market for

his products in Miami and apparently.

He has one client needs something
like five thousand pounds

of mint per week to.

Make he does.

So he's got a really successful
practice in the market and so

he has these greenhouses for
growing men on these vertical

zipped hours in Miami so we're.

Open up to questions and
say thank you very much thank you.

Thank

you.

Coco here yes.

Well.

There are law.

There are.

Little lot.

There about their part of it
twenty different agencies

there you have to get
various permits from.

Twenty or thirty something like that

yes.

Well it just I've just started
doing work in New Orleans and

I'm now licensed in New Orleans and
you know that's a very different landscape

because well yeah it's more
similar to here ecologically.

But probably a lot more than here but

there were trying to absorb the basically
redesigning the streetscape and trying to

absorb surface water runoff in an area
where we have really high water table.

And so the challenge is you know how
do we how do we deal with that and

a landscape that can't
absorb any of the water so

that's sort of a project
we just started so

I have to say you know the firm firm
is ten years old and I'm sort of just

starting to get out into other parts of
the country and I would love to work and

in different areas because
each micro climate is so

different and present such an interesting
set of problems I mean in New York it's

a lot of it's just jurisdictional I
mean that's the big challenge there but

in New Orleans it's much
more of a you know.

A geophysical problem right and

here it seems like the one of the issues
you have is the variability two years ago

you had really bad droughts and now we've
got like a really really wet fall but the.

Think that's going to be an increasing
problem all over the country you know

we're getting these variable landscapes or
this variable.

Are less predictable whether
I'm from Vermont and

our big economy is maple syrup and
I'm worried about

the maple trees because they're all you
know they're going to be migrating north

won't plant sugar maples
in New York anymore.

So not a lot of examples on here yet
but I mean if a few more years so

yes.

It was an expo so it was only designed
to be up from May to talk Tobar but

now they're trying to find another use for
it and so they may end up.

Putting it up in the the it's not the
embassy but there's a consulate up in or

in Milan they don't really
want to ship it because it

would be you know probably wouldn't
survive and it costs too much to ship but.

But so
hopefully it'll keep producing fruits and

vegetables for the consulate people.

Yes.

Thanks.

Well I think you know someone asked
me when I presented the the the green

wall the other day they said you know
this is an incredible ability to

to be a carbon sink you know if
we were to do this kind of green

wall infrastructure on a broader scale.

It could have another level of
productivity so you know I haven't done

the kind of quantification that I've
done and a lot of other things.

Yet but I think there shoot
potential because you know

this this landscape.

It's so easy right I mean actually
especially in a climate like where it

hasn't where you don't have as much for
using May It's so easy to maintain this.

And we were nervous about doing
this outside because this hadn't

been done outside this was
a technology for greenhouses or

for you know making landscapes
in greenhouses but in Milan for

summer it worked really well so
you know I could for

see having this in places where you
know you don't get freezing and

really having it be incredibly useful and
productive

so.

Well.

You know the sponge park kind
of funded completely with grants

Well I should say that I funded
all the design with grants.

We.

The initial design materials that we did.

Encouraged the city council to put
money into the capital funding so

the city council put in seven
hundred fifty thousand dollars for

of capital funding for
the construction and then.

I applied for a grant from the.

Environmental facilities Corporation
which is a state funding organisation and

got another five hundred
thousand dollars to basically.

Fill out the capital funding for

the project and all the soft costs
were covered by grants as well so.

The city is doing kind
of an income in tined.

Funding because they have their
people that are working on it but

that's because of
the city council money so

they kind of had to build it
some agency had to build it but

the when you get the money from city
council it doesn't necessarily.

Include the money for those city.

Workers to be running projects.

What I'm hoping with the project is to.

Talk to Koch talked to some
private funders because.

The issue we've had with that one is that.

OK The city has to spend ten million
dollars on each of these bridges.

And they.

You know to replace them we've now
learned that because of the way

the funding works if they eliminate those
bridges and they make a park out of it

then they no longer get the federal
money to take care of them so

we're looking for
more private sector funders because.

This is an incredibly vibrant
neighborhood there are you

know almost two hundred thousand people
that live in that neighborhood and

it would be a really ideal.

Marketing Opportunity for
a private sector.

Organisation to support.

You know particularly I mean what I was
trying to do it early on was sell it to.

My.

My Senators and

my politicians because it's also
a predominantly Latino neighborhood and

said you know you need their votes so you
know support this political about it but

I haven't been reaching out as much to.

The foundations and.

Corporations and I think that's what we
need to do to get that project built in

particular because that's what happened
in for the Clyde Warren Park in

Dallas they got both that which
is very similar in scale to

the green project but
they got money from state D.O.T.

and from city D.O.T. but then they also
got money from from Southwest Airlines and

from some other corporate sponsors so
you know with

I think that's the one that's that's
the most sort of ripe for that kind of.

Investment so with the Queensway Trust for

Public Land is handling all of the
fundraising for that so I have a feeling

that they will be reaching out to various
corporate sponsors I know that they have

some work they're doing with T.D. Bank
they've been a great supporter of team.

And they have a number of other
corporations that are big supporters so

but that's going through that channel so

we just try to make it work and
try to sort of.

At least a lot get the political

movements going the right right way but
it's an excellent question.

And I need to do more of that so.

Yes.

Well I think the whole notion of
relationships is what it's all about so

relationships and expertise so we have
this expertise in storm water management.

I taught.

At Harvard for a couple of years and of
course you know when you teach in a school

you pluck your best students and I had
woman working for me in Forbes Lipschitz

who is now a professor at L.S.E. you and

so Forbes left and
she went to see you and then.

Holiness Steiner who is a landscape
architect that was also one of my students

at City College of her and so I couldn't
go to a conference I send Polina and

and she people she's very personable so.

We're together all friends so
you know the smart women working for

me basically got out there and
met the right people and then.

When the R.F.P. was coming out for.

The resilience work in New Orleans
the city called us and

said we think you should apply so

it happened because I had done a
presentation of our work at the conference

in New Orleans we had this
relationship with you.

Had worked with a coastal engineer who
we ended up convincing to be the prime

because we didn't want to manage
the project because it's huge and

it's you know it's a lot of red tape so
we got them to be the prime in that but

we're the prime designers so
you know it's.

Related to that and the same thing you
know with the project in St Louis one of

my classmates from the G.S.T.
called me and said hey you know where you.

And we have this great.

Project so.

So.

Do more of that.

Kind of thing

so.