From Gowanus to the Bronx, oysters spur development
Landscape architect Kate Orff has a name for the work she does at her Scape firm: Oyster-tecture. Orff is designing a park and a living reef for the mouth of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, where oysters could take hold and help filter one of the nation’s most polluted waterways.
“My new hero is the oyster, with its biological power,” Orff says.
“My new hero is the oyster, with its biological power,” Orff says.
Oyster-tecture is a 21st-century approach to creating new waterfront infrastructures where long-gone shellfish can be brought back.
Construction has begun on a new pier area that is to host Orff’s reef. In her Manhattan office, she holds up a tangle of fuzzy black ropes that will be attached to the Brooklyn pier and filled with shellfish, which need to latch onto something to survive — whether a rock, dead shell or synthetic object.
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