Beach Green Dunes 3 Affordable Housing

Queens, NY

This building, which is pending Passive House certification, contains 146 apartments ranging in size from studios to three bedrooms, with thirty-eight designated for seniors and some fully-furnished apartments set aside for New Yorkers struggling with housing insecurity. Located on a difficult site in the flood-prone Rockaways in Queens, BA adopted a “jack-knife” parti to address local context and facilitate resiliency measures for the building. An eight-story wing with a double-loaded corridor fronts a transit plaza and subway station to the south, while a four-story wing with a single-loaded corridor fronts Beach Channel Drive - the primary vehicular thoroughfare through the Rockaways - and ties the building’s massing to the smaller, one- and two-family homes across the street to the north and west.

Given the site’s vulnerability to flooding, strong winds, and protracted loss of power in future storms, all exacerbated by accelerating climate change and sea level rise, resiliency was a primary design consideration. To mitigate flooding, the first floor has been elevated six feet above the surrounding streets and a series of ramps, stairs, and planted berms surround the building and extend under it at the recessed first floor to soften the transition between the lower public spaces and the flood-protected building interior. Additionally, the project deploys storm swales, porous paving, and rain gardens and green roofs with integrated stormwater retention to help mitigate storm flooding on site and in the surrounding neighborhood.

Location
Arverne East, Rockaways, Queens

Size
140,000sf

Status
Completed

Client
L&M Development, Bluestone Group, Triangle Equities

Project Team
Will Sheridan, Christopher Beck, Stephanie Hamilton, Ann Le, Paul Rasmussen, Praxiteles Lykos

Consultant Team
Gace (Structural Engineering), Skyline (MEP/FP), FLUX Studio (Lighting), Local Office Landscape (Landscape), SWA (Sustainability/Passive House)

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