New York City’s reliance on the Catskill/Delaware watershed has long depended on strict land-use control to protect water quality. Since the early 20th century city officials have expressed their intent to depopulate the watershed through land acquisition, and today the city directly owns or controls 214,000 acres in the region. In towns like Olive, NY, this has contributed to rising housing costs, limited economic opportunities, and tensions between local residents and seasonal newcomers, all the while city-owned land remains off-limits to the public.
The Adventure Library proposes a lending library for outdoor recreation equipment: lowering barriers to participation in outdoor activities, encouraging social connection, and building community through access to shared equipment and community spaces. The library employs a timber frame intersected with canvas-wrapped volumes. Elevated terraces provide rare views above the forest canopy, careening over the Upper Esopus Creek at its last publicly accessible point.
