Urban fabric registers, and in many cases contributes to, the simultaneous increase of human population, temperatures, carbon and flooding. The Pratt MS Urban Design sequence asks the urban surface to demonstrate new formats, media and strategies for urban resilience that includes supporting biodiversity.

Brooklyn’s Red Hook is a peninsula located between Buttermilk Channel, Gowanus Bay and Gowanus Canal, with large parts being landfills built over a former marsh and buried streams. Red Hook tends to experience flooding because of the combination of a high-water table, increasing storm surges, significant rainfall on impervious surfaces and sea level rise. The water bodies surrounding the Red Hook Peninsula form part of the New York-New Jersey Estuary, which supports a wide variety of marine life, which will be considered among the diversity of this neighbourhood.

The surfaces of existing buildings harbour untapped potential for ecological, cultural and economic benefit for the city. New York City buildings comprise about 100 square miles (259 km²) of adaptable facades which become, in Paul Mankiewicz’s terms, exchange surfaces for the city’s fluid geometries of atmosphere and water. Surfaces dotted with niches and nesting spaces; absorbent mediums and data-gathering interfaces become a living fabric with ecological benefits for many species.