B113 is a community development project located in Rockaway Park, NYC. With A2M as architecture partner, it is spearheaded by Produktif and other development stakeholders who wish to offer a resilient response to post-disaster community redevelopment.

Hurricane Sandy was a post-tropical cyclone that swept through the Caribbean and up the East Coast of the United States in October of 2012. Its tropical storm winds, storm surge and wave destruction caused unprecedented material and human loss of life.

With natural disasters such as Sandy becoming more frequent, humanity must also face the increasing disparity between rich and poor, lack of access to quality housing, and communities that feel disenfranchised and forgotten.

B113 is a design project intended to offer a replicable model of local community resilience and community re-development. The project proposes the following program:

RESILIENCY plan
This means autonomy in terms of energy, food and water in preparation for another storm like Sandy. It is Passive House certified as well as seismic-and-hurricane-proof to resist any 500-year event (0.2% chance of occurrence based on current charts), assuming that storms and increased weather events will occur at off-the-charts frequencies. It also features adherence to industrialized processes and quick assembly procedures that will save time and money during construction.

SOCIAL cohesion
Promoted through participatory design with local manufacturers and building unions to increase local content, training and jobs. The facility is located on a small and difficult site yet strategically placed in the heart of the Rockaways. The area is currently undergoing urban renewal that requires a multi-stakeholder process to reflect the various needs of community members and development objectives.

Modular REPLICABILITY
In terms of the project’s replicability elsewhere, the site responds to many similar situations along the USA and other national sea borders where a majority of people live, often vulnerable populations with limited options as seen during other similar disasters in American territory and elsewhere in the world. The project thus aspires to become a model on how to be ready and better prepared.