Native NYC is a celebration of the landscape of New York City and how it has changed over time. Designed as a second community garden for artist and activist Mary Mattingly's Swale project, this floating food forest is intended to provide fresh, healthy, and geographically native produce to individuals living in food deserts within New York City's 5 boroughs.
This design features three types of native garden beds (woodland, coastal, and medicinal), a greenhouse for year-round food production, and gathering spaces atop a retrofitted barge in NYC's waters.
The form of this project is inspired by a river delta. In this design, the delta's form symbolizes abundant growth, as the delta is typically the most fertile part of a river.
This form is additionally a strong model for informing the site's circulatory network, where secondary paths branch off from one main walkway.
Site Plan
section a
section b
circulation
planting zones
