Giving Compass' Take:

• A new public space in Brooklyn will be designed with climate change in mind, making it adaptable as sea levels rise.

• How can other coastal cities start thinking about the design of public spaces as it relates to climate change?

• Read about why no ecosystem is safe from climate change.

If you walk down Metropolitan Avenue, a street that stretches across North Brooklyn, you’ll eventually reach a dead end: a chain-link fence blocks off access to the waterfront on the East River. But vacant land behind the fence could soon be transformed into a new park that brings green space to the neighborhood—and that helps provide extra protection from storm surges as climate change pushes the water in the river to higher levels.

“We wanted to make a park that really changed the way that New Yorkers interacted with the river,” says Jed Walentas, a principal of Two Trees, the developer that plans to redesign the site, which was once used to store oil tanks for Con Edison, the local utility. Two Trees closed on the deal to buy the site this week.

The new design is part of a development project that will include two apartment towers, with 250 units of affordable housing and 750 market-rate apartments. But a large portion of the land will turn into public space, and some of the riverfront will be excavated so it can fill with water to help reduce flooding.

Instead of relying on a typical concrete sea wall next to the shore to protect land from flooding, the design works in part by letting water in. “For us, there was this larger notion of a change in mindset . . . instead of living against the water, living with the water, this idea that’s been prevalent in cities in the Netherlands and other places,” Switken says. “You can’t fight it, so you have to embrace it.”

In the proposed design, breakwaters extend into the river, creating partial barriers that can help dissipate energy from waves in a storm. (A hard barrier, by contrast, can’t dissipate waves and can even make them more violent when they rebound.)

Read the full article about coastal park adapts to rising sea levels by Adele Peters at Fast Company.