THE PROCESS
Launch
Resilient by Design launched in May 2017 with an open call to engineers, architects, designers, artists, dreamers, community members and students to come together and create teams of experts willing to tackle the challenge of building resilience to climate change. Of the 51 teams entered, 9 of the selected local and global Design Teams completed the Bay Area Challenge.
Collaborative Research Phase
(Fall of 2017) the teams explored the Bay Area, looking closely at places nominated by the community as especially vulnerable to the threats of sea level rise, severe storms, flooding, and earthquakes. This also included studying the intricacies of the Bay Area, from the effects of gentrification and regional transportation challenges, to the unique cultural histories of local communities.
Collaborative Design Phase
In January 2018, after each team presented 3-5 design opportunities, the RbD Research Advisory Committee assigned teams to specific locations. Over the next four months, the Design Teams developed their solutions for tackling sea level rise and creating resiliency, while working closely with community partners to ensure the concepts actually match community needs. This included collaborating with Y-PLAN, a youth engagement group that brings real life civic planning into the classroom, to draw student voices and youth perspectives into the design work.
Challenge Summit
Finally in May 2018, the Teams each revealed their innovative designs to an esteemed Jury who deliberated and made a case for how each design makes an important contribution, as part of a constellation of approaches.Each design concept was shared as part of a larger package of how communities can approach resiliency. The key considerations for assessing the strengths of the designs included:
- emphasis on multi-stakeholder, multi-benefit problem-solving strategies
- demonstration of feasibility from a technological and engineering perspective
- recognition of the need for a regional strategy
- focus on equitable and measurable community engagement
- ability to integrate ideas into existing sea level rise action plans. We’ve come a long way since the initial “Resilient by Design: Bay Area Challenge", which concluded in 2018.
Funders
Many thanks to all the generous funders who supported this innovative design challenge: The Rockefeller Foundation, Bay Area Regional Collaborative, seedfund, Santa Clara Valley Water District, City and County of San Francisco, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Marin Community Foundation, Resources Legacy Fund, and Coastal Conservancy.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The work is not done. The nine design proposals serve as a catalyst for the community work moving forward and set the Bay Area on a path to a more resilient future. Many are committed to turning these ideas—invested in and created by communities—into real-world models and solutions for other cities to implement. Several of the Proposals have advanced from concepts to engineered designs with local partners.
KEY PARTICIPANTS
RbD Executive Board
Allison Brooks, Bay Area Regional Collaborative
Tom Butt, City of Richmond
Amy Chester, Rebuild by Design
Arian Covert, Bay Area Council
Amy Hutzel, State Coastal Conservancy
Kiran Jain, Neighborly
Ashwini Kantak, City of San Jose
Dwayne Marsh, Government Alliance on Race & Equity
John Rahaim, City & County of San Francisco
Laura Tam, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association
Francesca Vietor, The San Francisco Foundation
RbD Staff
Amanda Brown-Stevens
Hanah Goldov
Emma Greenbaum
Tira Okamoto
Zoe Siegel
Mirisa Villarreal
RbD Jurors
Lauren Alexander Augustine, National Academy of Sciences
Sarah Icioka, Desire Lines
Roberto Moris, Research Centre for an Integrated Risk Management
Liz Ogbu, Studio O
Henk Ovink, International Water Affairs, Netherlands
Shelley Poticha, Natural Resources Defense Council
Denise Reed, The Water institute of the Gulf
Jerry Schubel, Aquarium of the Pacific
Cynthia Smith, Smithsonian Design Museum
Helle Soholt, Gehl Architects
David Waggonner, Waggonner and Ball Architects
Research Advisory Committee
Ratna Amin,m SPUR
Kit Batten, PG&E
Josh Bradt, San Francisco Estuary Partnership
Dana Brechwald, ABAG
Ellie Cohen, Point Blue Conservation Science
Tian Feng, BART
John Gibbs, WRT
Lettitia Grenier, San Francisco Estuary Institute
Nahal Ghoghaie, Resilient Communities Initiative
Jesus Hernandez, Neighborhood Support Project-JCH Research
Jeffrey Koseff, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
David Lewis, Save the Bay
Roger Lin, Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment
Lindy lowe, Port of San Francisco
Bruce Riodan, Climate Readiness Institute
Rupal Sangvi, HealthxDesign
Parin Shah, Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Cathy Simon, Perkins + Will
Mark Stacy, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Rick Thomasser, Bay Area Flood Protection Agencies Association
Elizabeth Wamper, Great Communities Collaborative
Corinne Winter, Winter Consulting
Science Advisory Team (from San Francisco Estuary Institute)
Robin Grossinger
Scott Dusterhoff
Katie McKnight
Jeremy Lowe
Erica Spotswood
Lettitia Grenier
Julie Beagle
April Robinson
Finance Advisory Team
Brian Benn, Environmental Risk & Financial Solutions
Michael Paparian, Environmental Finance Consultant
Shalini Vajjhala, re:focus partners
Kathy Schaefer, UC Davis Watershed Sciences Center
Robert Spencer, Urban Economics
Mark Northcross, NHA Advisors
A Generous Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation
The Resilient by Design|Bay Area Challenge was funded through a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Building off of their investments in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco through the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative, Rockefeller was enticed by the Bay Area’s overwhelming passage of Measure AA – a region-wide parcel tax aimed at funding shoreline projects that will protect and restore the Bay - a sign that Bay Area residents are ready to make the investments necessary to adapt to an uncertain future.
Local Public, Private and Philanthropic Funding Partners
Other critical funding and support has come from BARC, the City of San Francisco, the State Coastal Conservancy, the Santa Clara County Water Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Marin Community Foundation, the San Francisco Community Foundation, the Seed Fund, Autodesk, Facebook and PG&E.