A huge infrastructure project designed to prevent future Hurricane Sandy-style devastation, the Dryline is a perfectly-named solution for a city already sporting a successful High Line and an underground Low Line currently under construction. In the wake of that devastating super-storm, over 300,000 homes were left damaged or destroyed and nearly 20 billion dollars of destruction was caused in total – the first section of the Dryline is slated to cost a few hundred million, which in contrast does not seem like so much money.

Developed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the scheme continuous to evolve with each iteration. This latest video illustrates many of the mechanisms of action through easy-to-understand sketches and diagrams. It also features interviews with New Yorkers about their vision for a greener southern tip for Manhattan.

Designed to be deployed incrementally, the grand plan involves many discrete steps, each intended to shore up the lower portion of the city – the place that takes the brunt of incoming tides. The individual interventions vary, from berms that double as parks to sliding barriers that move into position during unusually high tides. Ultimately, “the Dryline imagines a landscaped buffer stretching all the way from West 57th Street, looping down to the Battery and back up to East 42nd Street, bestowing Manhattan with a protective green cushion.”

At the same time, the design follows classic principles of urban landscape pioneers like Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, taking this environmental challenge as an opportunity to create more park and civic space. Per The Guardian, “With a sprinkling of fairy-dust, the shoreline becomes furnished with undulating berms and protective planting, flip-down baffles and defensive kiosks, promenades and bike paths, bringing pedestrian life worthy of Lisbon or Barcelona to the gritty banks of Manhattan.”

BIG is a firm known for thinking large and this project is no exception. Then again, lessons learned from the other ambitious urban projects (like NYC’s High Line) can be applied here: built it piece by piece to reduce one-time costs and provide room for adjustment, and take citizen input into account. In the end, anyone who has walked the south edge of Manhattan knows it is a disjointed and, in many places, unwelcoming space – there is a huge opportunity for a new kind of part to provide connectivity and green space from this disparate set of urban landscapes.

“The Dryline consists of multiple but linked design opportunities; each on different scales of time, size and investment; each local neighborhood tailoring its own set of programs, functions, and opportunities. Small, relatively simple projects maintain the resiliency investment momentum post-Sandy, while setting in motion the longer-term solutions that will be necessary in the future.”

Designed to shield the exposed edges of Lower Manhattan from increasingly-disastrous storms, this impressive system of parks and other public spaces is also designed to serve the everyday needs of New York citizens.

Rising sea levels and increased flood frequencies may eventually are the driving threat behind this competition entry. Big U, an urban design scheme authored by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and others, is one of a set of submissions to Rebuild by Design, a competition from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This plan calls for a series of discrete interventions that together form a protective buffer.

Jeremy Siegel, one of the project leads, elaborates: “Because they all work individually, you end up with a system that’s resilient. If you have a breach in one area, it’s localized and you can organize evacuation into neighboring compartments. It’s a little bit like the hull of a ship, where you’ve got different segments, and breaching one area doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole system fails.”

One of the advantages of this segmentation is the ability to build in sections, breaking a massive construction project down into discrete steps that can be implemented sequentially for budgeting and other pragmatic reasons. Each area features its own personality and amenities, including aquariums, swimming pools, walking paths and seasonal markets.

Learning local lessons from Hurricane Sandy (and national ones from the likes of Katrina), the architecture teams participating in the competition sought to address social as well as engineering needs. Located anywhere else and their ambitious plans might sound far fetched, but New York City is already home to Central Park and The High Line.

Siegel notes that, particularly in a place like NYC, “If you’re going to be investing so much money into an infrastructure for resiliency–that’s going to be sitting along one of the most spectacular coastlines in the world–there’s a huge opportunity there to also improve civic infrastructure, so it can protect the city, but also become a platform for civic life.” As for other proposed schemes, you can see and read more about the finalists and (eventual) winners at Rebuild by Design.

For many of the world’s citizens (and travelers), the threat of bodily harm from war or terror attacks is a daily fact of life. Constructed of bulletproof material, this backpack is designed to reduce the risk of personal injury in unstable regions.

Dubbed Rhino Skin (part of Second-Chance Gear) and designed by Hadassah College graduate Hila Raam, the pack’s back and side straps pull forward and wrap around the wearer to form bulletproof vest.

On top, a likewise projectile-and-debris-resistant hood can be deployed when one hits the proverbial deck upon hearing an air raid siren, helping shield the wearer, if warned, from additional shrapnel injuries.

While it will not do much in some  extreme, close-proximity situations (where nothing short of full body armor would help), it does cover the head and torso, protecting vital organs and reducing damage potential from rocket, mortar or bomb strikes.

From the designer: the Rhino Skin is “a modular backpack combining kevlar used as a civilian personal protection system in
countries or areas that are under daily attacks, protecting against debris and impact created from missile and rocket attacks.This unique bag pack protects the essential life or death body areas … the head, neck, back and the sides of the body. Most important the brain, heart, liver and kidneys are fully protected.”

Clubs, axes and bats are anything but typical furniture, and may be off-putting to ordinary people visiting your house. Hence these hybrid designs, in which weapons are built right into nightstands, coat racks and coffee tables.

First, a classic: the James McAdam bat-and-shield bedside-table set that started out as a concept design, but through a cycle of positive viral feedback has not made it into production and is available for purchase.

From its creator: “Here it is the [safest bedside table] you can buy. Made from Birch [plywood] Maple and Leather this table is priced at $245. It has been developed [since being] exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art NY and now being made in the UK for sale worldwide.”

Next, a spiked club from The Principals.  “Crossing a classic piece of sports equipment with an everyday household piece of furniture, the Bat Rack uses iconographic items to create a unique piece that functions both passively and actively, to serve and protect.

“As a weapon of self defense and a place to hang your belongings, the Bat Rack can be installed on any wall by swinging, spike-end first, or used to stop any burglar in their tracks. Constructed from solid Carolinian maple and hand-turned stainless steel, the Bat Rack is inspired by the supple curves of Danish mid-century masters and the crack of a bat heard from neighborhood sandlots.”

Finally, from designer Chris Duffy, the less-practical but quite-beautiful axe table. “Walnut veneer or light Oak veneer from Stewardship Council managed forests and other controlled sources, the solid hickory axe handles are specially imported from the USA. Resin composite axe heads.”