Judy Huynh
Empowering Change through Data
Part-time adjunct professor at NYU Wagner and data and GIS analyst at Rebuild by Design. I take government data on flood risk and disaster spending and turn it into maps and tools that people can read and use.
Urban planner, New York City
Huynh /win/ Vietnamese
Featured project
Selling Flood Risk NYC
A block in Kissena Park, Queens, where lives were lost during Hurricane Ida, had four homes listed for sale in 2024, with no mention of flood risk. How many homes are being sold in flood-prone areas, and are buyers being told? A listing shows an asking price, not what a buyer paid, so the study was built on the city’s own record of one- to three-family home sales in 2023, from the Department of Finance.
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Rainproof NYC Flood Map
Does my block flood in places the city’s maps don’t show?
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New Jersey Underwater
What happens to a town’s schools when the homes that pay for them keep flooding?
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NYC Parks as Climate Infrastructure
If a park soaks up the rain and cools the block, why do we budget it like decoration?
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Atlas of Accountability
When disaster money arrives, whose name is on the map?
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Atlas of Disaster
Does my state have its own money set aside for the next disaster?
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Selling Flood Risk NYC
Would you still buy the house if the listing told you it floods?
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Climate Gentrification NYC
Can protecting a neighborhood from floods price out the people it was meant to protect?
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SecondChanceNYC: Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy
Who gets to decide what a neighborhood’s comeback looks like?
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Curb Forward, Upper West Side
Why is there always a delivery truck double parked on my block?
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Autonomous Vehicles at Port Authority
If cars drive themselves, what should an airport’s front door look like?
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The Flow: Mixed-Use Development Proposal for North Charleston, SC
Could the old navy base in North Charleston become somewhere people want to live?
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E 14th Street Revitalization (Post-COVID)
When 14th Street’s shops went empty after the pandemic, what would have brought people back?
Work
12 projects, 2022 to 2026
Data tells us a lot. The people who live there tell us the rest. My work puts both on the same map.
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Manhattan Bridge, doors off
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Manhattanhenge
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Chinatown, through a fire escape
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Zurich
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Grand Central, track 29
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Long Island City at dusk
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Jersey City from above
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Bed-Stuy, marching band
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River to River
42nd Street read lot by lot from the Hudson to the East River. It shows who owns the land and…
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Numerology on a Tidbyt
The day’s two numerology numbers on a Tidbyt, a small LED display, refreshed every night by a script on GitHub.
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The Basket
Who can find out what food costs in New York before walking into a store? This maps how many food…
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Manifest Station
Press the board and it flips over to one short manifestation. This is the web prototype for a small machine…
Builds
4 builds
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Multi-hazard planning is adaptation
A wildfire can make the next rainstorm far more dangerous, and the batteries powering the clean energy shift bring fire risks of their own. Our maps, insurance and codes still…
My thoughts on a complex world, and the systems we need to interrogate.