Gowanus Lowlands

Building on decades of city, state, and federal planning efforts, Gowanus Lowlands is a community-based vision for a restored public realm and open space network centered around the 1.8-mile-long Gowanus Canal and its watershed.

The Gowanus Lowlands Master Plan coordinates a new generation of waterfront parks, ecological edges, and civic spaces that address the neighborhood's most pressing challenges—from combined sewage overflow and coastal flooding to a historic lack of accessible open space—while honoring the industrial character and community identity that make Gowanus unlike anywhere else in New York City. SCAPE is helping to carry out this vision by designing a cohesive network of parks and waterfront spaces that are adaptive, useful, and accessible for all.

The Gowanus Lowlands Master Plan coordinates the disparate actions of separate landowners into a cohesive waterfront park built incrementally over time, while addressing the social and environmental justice concerns of contamination, combined sewage overflow (CSO), and degraded air and water quality.

Anticipating a neighborhood in transition, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy united diverse stakeholders in coalition to create the Gowanus Lowlands as an action plan for how new development can truly serve existing and future residents. Through sustained engagement with residents and technical experts, our team worked to understand both the challenges and the genuine potential of the area. Extensive collaboration with the New York City Department of City Planning ensured that the 2021 rezoning directly incentivized key features of the plan, including floodable landscapes, waterfront access, and community programming.

The Gowanus Lowlands embodies much of the history and opportunity of New York City today. The Gowanus Canal once hosted a productive industrial neighborhood, which left it one of the most polluted bodies of water in the country. In 2010 the canal was declared a Superfund site, and in 2021 the City of New York rezoned the area to incentivize the construction of 8,500 affordable and market-rate residential units to address the city's ongoing affordable housing crisis.

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New Boathouse

Recreational canal use

Maintain Active Maritime Use

Red Hook Rec Center

Brooklyn Greenway

Red Hook Houses

Red Hook

Industrial Business Zone

Active industry

Industrial Green Roofs

Stormwater management and flood mitigation

Floating Walkway

Canal access where esplanade ends

6th St Wetland Basin

Salt marsh terraces

New Pedestrian Bridges

Connect to the Salt Lot

GCC Maintenance Hub

A native nursery and eco education hub encourage community stewardship

Washington Park

Basin Wetland Restoration

Wetland terraces create a diverse salt marsh environment for habitat and filtration

1st St Basin Restoration

Environmental mitigation related to Superfund Cleanup

Creek Daylighting

A buried creek is daylighted and celebrated as a new open space

Union St Commercial Mix

Overlook Street End

Get high for expansive views of the Lowlands

Water Steps Street End

Get low for varying experiences at different water levels

Thomas Green Park

Warren Houses

Wyckoff Houses

Boathouse

Education Center

DEP Retention Tank Park

Stormwater retention tank mitigates CSO overflows

Boerum Hill

Park Slope

Gowanus Houses

Flushing Tunnel

Park Connector Streets

Improved edges of existing parks are connected to the canal through a distinct street planting typology

Carroll Gardens

Stormwater Street End

Collect and filter runoff from adjacent streets

Green Roofs

Provide habitat and absorb stormwater

Water Access

Kayak launch

Brooklyn Greenway Spur

Carroll Park

Carroll Street Eco Basin

Completed 2025

Sackett Community Hub

Completed 2025

Huntington Tidal Terrace

Completed 2025

Inspired by the historic hydrology of the Gowanus as a tidal estuary fed by freshwater creeks, the Gowanus Lowlands proposes spatial concepts that solve for multiple issues at once: the urban heat island effect and lack of tree canopy; sea-level rise, coastal flooding, stormwater management, and a combined sewer system; and the lack of connectivity and equitable access to open space across the neighborhood.

SCAPE worked with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy to develop a toolkit of standard waterfront materials to enable more seamless transitions between sites along the canal. Some materials were standardized as requirements for landowners, including light fixtures and an industrial-inspired guardrail design, while others remained as recommendations, allowing a varied collage of open spaces to emerge along the water's edge. Throughout, visitors learn about the region's historical ecology through integrated landscape interpretation: signage, a tide clock, and public art woven into the fabric of the public realm. Learn more about creating Learning Landscapes.

At the heart of the vision is a clean and thriving waterway and open space network defined by high-quality civic spaces, a restored waterfront edge, and a cohesive material palette that preserves the unique identity of the neighborhood as it changes over time.

Oyster-tecture

The Gowanus Canal was one of America’s most polluted waterways, and its location in the New York Harbor made it one of the many places that were affected by flooding because of Hurricane Irene and Sandy.
Introduced in 2009, as part of MoMA’s Rising Currents exhibition, Oyster-tecture is an ecological infrastructural concept that envisions an active oyster reef to improve water quality as a natural bio filter.
Blending urbanism and ecology, the concept proposed an accessible idea that could be implemented immediately, nurturing the already active revitalization of a long-lost natural oyster reef.
The oyster reed is constructed from nets of woven “fuzzy rope” that supports oyster growth. The reef will clean millions of gallons of harbor water and by attenuating waters, protect the adjacent shoreline. Learn more about how SCAPE is Transforming New York's Harbor.

Community engagement sessions brought together residents, city agencies, neighborhood associations, and environmental advocates to shape a shared vision for the canal's future.

The Gowanus Lowlands Master Plan has directly informed the design of dozens of sites along the canal, including the design and implementation of three recently completed privately-owned public landscapes by SCAPE, introducing a new generation of water-based public space to New York City.

Gowanus Canal in midst of environmental transformation

Vanessa Murdock
CBS News New York

Sackett Community Hub

Enhancing the culture of canal living, the Sackett Community Hub brings a series of outdoor "rooms" with rich social programming for the neighborhood's growing mixed-income community. Through community engagement, residents expressed a clear desire for inclusive, family-oriented spaces at the water's edge. The result is a shaded picnic area, an oyster-inspired play space, and a "get-down" that enables people to safely approach the water while complying with the bulkhead requirements of the Superfund cleanup. Landscape interpretation throughout the site narrates the region's ecological history, grounding the experience in place and memory.

Carroll Eco Basin

The Gowanus Lowlands embraces the canal as a living system in recovery. Carroll Eco Basin at 420 Carroll Street, one of the few remaining low-bulkhead sites along the canal, creates an ecological edge rarely seen on developer projects: terraced landforms, a floodable "get-down," a planted tidal shelf, and a lifted boardwalk. The landscape reinterprets historic freshwater-saltwater gradients through a "street creek" that filters stormwater toward the canal, reducing the burden on CSO infrastructure and connecting visitors to the hydrological systems working beneath the surface.

Huntington Tidal Terrace

The Gowanus Lowlands proposes a cohesive material palette to unite disparate land uses along the canal. The truss guardrail at Huntington Tidal Terrace reflects the canal's industrial history and is required by zoning for all new projects. Elements like benches and planting are drawn from a flexible matrix, meeting varying landowner needs while promoting district-wide cohesion. Textured concrete blocks, granite cobble pavers, and metal lattice work weave an industrial past into an ecologically restored future. Adjacent to Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s native plant nursery, the site serves as a living demonstration of a climate-adapted plant palette suited to the canal's demanding urban conditions.

The Gowanus Lowlands Master Plan and its initial built esplanades are part of nearly two decades of city and community advocacy in the neighborhood. Today, the project is entering a critical phase of investment and development. As a new generation of public realm unfolds along the canal, the Gowanus Lowlands continues to function as a potent advocacy tool and a demonstration of what design-led collaborative planning can achieve. SCAPE is continuing work at a number of sites across the neighborhood, designing waterfront spaces that are active, clean, and accessible for all, carrying the vision and goals of the Master Plan forward to realize an equitable, vibrant, and resilient Gowanus.