Looking Ahead for the Waterfront

Masters of Landscape Architecture students in Cornell's Climate-Adaptive Design (CAD) studio spent the spring semester studying Hudson's southern waterfront--South Bay and the shoreline south of Promenade Hill. The purpose of the study was to design alternatives for a more climate-resilient--as well as a more beautiful and connected--river edge.

The students' designs were presented for the first time on May 20 to a number of city officials and others concerned about the future of the waterfront. From June 4 through July 4, the designs will be on display in the Center Hall Gallery at the Hudson Opera House.

On Saturday, June 4, from 4 to 6 p.m., there will be an opening reception for the exhibition, which is being called Waterfront Future: Designing Resilience for an Epoch of Rising Tides. The event includes a talk by Libby Zemaitis, climate resilience specialist at the Department of Conservation's Hudson River Estuary Program and co-creator of Cornell's CAD studio, and Nancy Richards, a leader of the pioneering Catskill Waterfront Resilience Task Force. The talk will deal with the CAD process, the Cornell student designs, and how Hudson River communities can address the risks posed by climate change.

If you can't make it to the Hudson Opera House on Saturday to hear Zemaitis and Richards speak, you can get some background on the exhibition by listening to the Thursday Afternoon Show on WGXC this Thursday, June 2. Beginning at about 4:15 p.m., hosts Ellen Thurston and Tom DePietro will be discussing the project and the exhibition with Jonathan Lerner, chair of Hudson's Conservation Advisory Council, and Liz LoGiudice, from Cornell Cooperative Extension.
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