Project by Zehra Zaheer, Tianyi Shi, Giovanna Luz Moreira

This project begins with a simple belief: places shaped with care and love can, in turn, shape people who care for one another, for nature, and for the generations that follow. It is a commitment to reciprocate the care that land and water have long provided, and to design with empathy for both human and ecological systems. For decades, the streams, marshes, and shorelines of Bellmore and Levittown carried the memories of everyday life: children playing near creeks, families gathering by the water’s edge, elders observing the slow rhythm of tides. These landscapes were not just environmental systems; they were social and cultural spaces that supported connection and belonging. As suburban development intensified, these natural rhythms were gradually erased. Streams were buried, wetlands filled, and shorelines hardened. The land grew increasingly strained, water was left without space to move, and communities began to fragment. This project emerges as an act of compassion toward that forgotten landscape and an act of love toward the people who continue to call it home. By reviving historic streams and restoring tidal marshes, the proposal returns care to the land while acknowledging that nature has its own needs, intelligence, and memory. Making room for water is not driven by fear of flooding or risk alone, but by respect—for its power, its quiet wisdom, and its role as the original organizer of this region. Before highways, zoning, and rigid suburban patterns, water structured settlement, sustained ecosystems, filtered nutrients, and managed seasonal change. Though hidden beneath infrastructure today, water continues to follow its historic paths. Flooding, storm surges, and drainage failures are not acts of disruption, but reminders of water’s persistence and its unmet need for space. Rather than treating water as a problem to be controlled, the project positions it as a collaborator and the main protagonist in design. Each intervention begins by asking: What does water want to do here? This shift in perspective allows resilience to emerge through alignment with natural systems rather than resistance to them. At the infrastructural scale, a highway cap and restored stream reconnect fragmented neighborhoods while reestablishing ecological continuity. Within the suburban fabric, streets and blocks are transformed into shared, permeable landscapes that encourage social interaction and environmental stewardship. Along transit corridors, underutilized land becomes a linear park that supports water movement, recreation, and community life. At the coast, the project offers pathways of adaptation or retreat, recognizing that living with water requires humility, choice, and long-term care. Across all scales, the project is guided by an ethic of stewardship. By designing with water rather than against it we restore not only ecological systems, but also the social bonds that emerge when land is shared, tended, and respected. In doing so, the project affirms a fundamental truth: resilient futures are built not through control, but through care.