News
Building a Healthy Relationship with Water
Oct 18 2010
By Taylor Galyean
Feldmeier Galyean
Over the past few weeks, in the wake of the fifth anniversary of Katrina, there has been particular focus on New Orleans’ relationship with water.
We have been hearing of innovative ways to provide increased flood and storm protection, not only with gates and pumps, but by more fully incorporating water into our city environment. But reactions to these insightful plans have also shown that there is a significant fear of water, in particular a fear of drowning, and this is affecting our ability to embrace these ideas. We need to address our collective fear of water in order to be in a stronger position to make the best decisions to protect our city and her people.
A first step in accomplishing this is to understand that providing access to water can be safer then trying to only protect ourselves from it. We need to have safe, comfortable, and fun ways for the people of New Orleans to engage with water. This, specifically, brings the example of the reconstruction of the revetments in Chicago along Lake Michigan to mind.
Chicago has the wonderful resource of Lake Michigan, in which many people swim. The continuous park that extends 20 miles along the lake’s edge has a combination of revetments and beaches. The old revetments were large stones that were stacked like a staircase coming out of the water. This provided a place for people to sit and get into the water, if they wanted. As these old revetments fell into disrepair, the Corps of Engineers came up with new designs for the revetments that consisted of large terraces of concrete ending abruptly at the water’s edge with a seven-foot drop-off to the water below. This caused a huge uproar as the citizens preferred the design of the old stone staircase revetments.
The primary concerns were comfortable and safe access to the water. With this new design, it wasn’t possible to sit with your feet in the lake, and it was very intimidating to get in the water. There was no place to hold onto if you got into trouble and only an occasional ladder to get out. And with the abrupt edge of the lowest terrace, it was much easier to fall in the lake by accident. One argument for the new design was that people should only be getting into the water at the beaches anyway, but if deterrence was the intent, clearly the only solution wasn’t to make it more dangerous in these other areas.
Neighborhoods that had the political will (Hyde Park specifically) were able to get the revetments redesigned to address these concerns. The revetment built here is based on the stone staircase approach and the benefits of thoughtful design at the water’s edge is notable. While it provides comfortable safe access for swimmers, it also does its job in creating an anxiety-free relationship with the water for the non-swimmer. People can comfortably sit on the edge without the concern of what may happen if they fall in. They can safely touch and engage the water, even as non-swimmers.
Here in New Orleans, Audubon Park, Bayou St. John, and City Park are good examples of places where you can walk up to the water’s edge and engage the water. And if you happen to fall in, you can get out with relative ease and minimal peril, as some young over-eager duck feeders can attest.
While there is a tendency to protect people from themselves, the way to do this is not to create barriers that are potentially more dangerous, but to give citizens safe access where they can be in control of their situation.
Before we are able to teach the majority of people to swim (which we need to do), we need to provide safe, comfortable, and fun ways for the people of New Orleans to engage the water where they are in control and feel like they are in control. And much of this can be accomplished with design and engineering that is sensitive to this issue.
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Taylor Galyean is a principal of Feldmeier Galyean, a New Orleans based architecture and design firm whose projects include: campus design, resorts, spas, and aquatic centers. Watch Taylor’s 2010 TedXnola talk on this subject here.
Filed under: Editorials | Rebuilding New Orleans
Replies
Zoe Sullivan said:
I couldn’t agree more with this article. Not only is learning to swim important as a way to build confidence with water, but changing our built environment so that we are not only better able to interact with it, but also safer should be a real priority. This is especially true given the urgency of the environmental issues facing our area.
Oct 19 2010
9:30 AM
Charles Boxenbaum AIA said:
The article reflects what I believe to be the real value of “design thinking”. Rather than just posit a “design”, it offers a rationale based on human behavior as well as a healthy clarification of what life would be like in a perfect world - everyone would know how to swim (maybe even three different kinds of strokes) - and what we as designers and a society can do in the real world.
Oct 19 2010
11:04 AM
Travis said:
Safe access to public water—back to basics—very nice.
Too true how barriers to water meant to protect can lead to unsafe conditions. Also leads to disconnect with the concept of public ownership of waterways and consequently a failure to take responsibility for protecting these resources.
Oct 19 2010
11:21 AM
Marco Cocito-Monoc said:
An interesting article. Thanks for this information. I’m quite curious to know how this fear of water amongst our residents was identified. Was it through public meetings with The Friends of Lafitte Corridor and similar groups? Are there specific demographic/geographic groups within our city that have a greater relative fear of water than others? In short, is it possible to target specific programs (such as swimming lessons) to particular groups?
Oct 20 2010
1:09 PM
Geoff said:
One of the perplexing things about living in New Orleans is the proximity to water while having very few ways to access / enjoy / engage the water. Then slowly, the historic decisions that were made to limit or remove water from our midst become evident: Wait a minute … Why is there no basin at Basin Street?
Oct 20 2010
3:37 PM
Dana said:
Geoff— Have you had a chance to look at Waggonner’s study of water management along the Lafitte Greenway: http://folc-nola.org/Lafitte-Greenway-08032010-small.pdf? The Basin-less Basin Street certainly is mentioned. He presents that area at the trailhead as one of many opportunities to reintegrate some of these now disconnected and poorly contextualized pieces of our history as a delta city while addressing critical infrastructure issues like storm water management and subsidence.
Oct 20 2010
4:54 PM
Barbara said:
I grew up on the banks of Lake Erie. Our public junior and senior high schools both had in-door pools and the ability to swim (if only to tread water) had to be proven before granting a diploma. As a former public high school principal in Orleans Parish I became aware of the problem of water fear and if I could get my hands on millions of dollars, I would build scores of pools in connection with NORD or the public elementary schools where parents would join with their students in learning to swim. We are an “island” surrounded by water and it should be a public responsibility to see that our citizens know how to swim.
Oct 24 2010
9:54 AM
Taylor Galyean said:
@Marco Cocito-Monoc
My interest is in promoting confidence, rejuvenation, and good health with water. And in New Orleans, I have noticed a lack of access and opportunities to engage water in these ways. When setting out to better understand this, fear of water has been identified as a contributing factor.
There is a Diversity in Swimming Study by USA Swimming from May of this year. The national results found that 70% of African American children, 58% Hispanic children, and 40% Caucasian children have low or no swimming ability. If we apply these percentages to the ethnic breakdown here, it suggests that approximately 60% of children in New Orleans have low to no swimming ability. And when the study looked to identify the reasons behind these high percentages, it was found that the parent’s “fear of drowning” was the major contributing factor.
link to study
While the USA Swimming Study identifies a “fear of drowning” as a national swimming problem, in New Orleans, a fear of water is also affecting our collective approach to issues and decisions locally. In private meetings with city institutions, a “fear of drowning” was specifically stated as an issue when discussing potential city plans and was given as a reason to not support integrating water into the city.
And being a city surrounded by water, I believe it is also worth noting how we have engaged the river and lake. We built a needed levee and pump system to protect ourselves from flooding, but I would surmise that this predominantly defensive approach complicates the way we relate to water and reinforces a fear of it.
In addressing the question “is it possible to target specific programs to particular groups?”, I believe there are things we can do. Swimming programs are clearly important, but confronting the “fear of drowning” is critical. This fear can begin to be addressed by creating additional ways for people of all ages to engage water in safe and comfortable situations.
While USA Swimming gave us the national ethnic breakdown for swimming ability, we lack a detailed comprehensive study for New Orleans. This information would not only be helpful to target initiatives to teach swimming and life safety skills, but would also help us understand how we can address the fear of water to make our citizens more confident and comfortable. And with these potential efforts we would open up the possibilities for water to be reintroduced to the city in a safe and rejuvenating way.
Oct 26 2010
12:46 PM
marco cocito-monoc said:
Many thanks for this thorough and thoughtful answer, Taylor. Continued best wishes with your important work.
Oct 29 2010
6:52 PM