REVIVAL THROUGH RESILIENCE: Small Craft Harbor Design within a Coastal Urban Community

Abstract

Coastal communities along the Mid-Atlantic shoreline are facing difficult decisions moving forward into the 21st Century. The Rockaway Peninsula exemplifies many issues urban coastlines are facing. Environmental degradation, historic urban infill and development, a stagnant economy, and aging infrastructure, are only a few dilemmas communities along the Rockaway Peninsula are dealing with in the wake of the most current natural disaster that has left many questioning the future development of the area. This thesis explores what roles a Small Craft Harbor (SCH) could function as within an urban setting along the Atlantic coastline. The project will offer suggestions as to how programmatic elements within SCH development along the back bay shoreline of the Rockaway Peninsula, could serve to protect and enhance not only the human communities residing on the peninsula, but ecological systems fighting for survival within the back bay waters of the Jamaica Bay.