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resilient bay area

UC Berkeley Team Selected To Design Adaptive Responses To Bay Area's Rising Tides

A diverse group of locally-based and globally-experienced professionals, academics, students, and policy makers from the University of California, Berkeley has been chosen to participate in the Resilient By Design (RBD) Bay Area Challenge, a collaborative research and design project that brings together local residents, public officials and local, national and international experts to develop innovative solutions to the issues brought on by climate change in the Bay Area.

The College of Environmental Design, Berkeley Center for New Media and Terner Center for Housing Innovation will be key players in leading the multidisciplinary team called The All Bay Collective (ABC). Selected as one of ten teams from a pool of over fifty international entries, ABC’s task is to identify critical areas throughout the Bay Area and propose and design exciting, community-based solutions to strengthen the region’s resilience to sea level rise, severe storms, flooding and earthquakes. Each team will receive up to $250,000 for its work, which begins this week, that will conclude in May with adaptation strategies for 10 distinct locations along the edge of the bay.

Partnering with California College of the Arts and several professional firms -- including AECOM, CMG, IDEO, Modem/Moll de Monchaux, Skeo and Silvestrum -- ABC seeks to leverage deep expertise with the innovation energy of students to address this emerging challenge for the Bay Area and the world. By engaging top faculty and students at UC Berkeley, the ABC team seeks to empower and recognize the next generation of designers, planners and citizens of the Bay Area.

"CED's participation in the Resilient by Design Challenge is a tremendous opportunity for faculty to put their ideas into action, and work alongside some extraordinary professional teams,” said Jennifer Wolch, William W. Wurster Dean and Professor of City & Regional Planning at CED. “For students across the college, RBD creates a fantastic learning environment, allowing them to work across disciplinary boundaries and engage directly with a major challenge facing our metropolitan region."

During RBD's collaborative research phase this fall, ABC will participate in advanced, multi-disciplinary seminars and studios at CED, led by key faculty members who are recognized internationally for urban design innovations. Through seminars, studios, and colloquia, students and professionals will work together at Berkeley and around the Bay Area to identify key sites and strategies for creating a more resilient, just, and sustainable environment. Collaborations this fall semester include:

A research seminar led by Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Nicholas de Monchaux, who directs the Berkeley Center for New Media and is known for developing innovative digital tools to challenge conventional thinking about cities, spaces, and ecologies.

A colloquium led by Kristina Hill, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design, whose work on new strategies for adapting to flooding in urban design is recognized worldwide.

An urban design studio led by Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Harrison Fraker and Associate Professor of Architecture and Lalanne Chair of Real Estate Development Chris Calott, where an international group of students are taking on climate adaptation as their starting point for city design. Professor Fraker is an international expert on sustainable city districts, and Associate Professor Calott is an urban design and development innovator who brings a real estate perspective to ideas about urban futures.

Carol Galante, the I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor of Affordable Housing and Urban Policy, Faculty Director of the Terner Center and former Assistant Secretary of HUD, has also joined the team to bring the best ideas about new housing and affordability into adaptation for a future climate.

After being matched with a local site at the end of the year, the ABC Team will focus on conducting a design process to generate adaptation strategies and innovative design notions for increasing regional resilience and serving local communities. Alongside work by professional partners, spring studios and seminars at CED will continue to produce a single, implementable proposal in May 2018.

With deep connections to local communities and wide-ranging experience in global projects, ABC will fuse science, design excellence, academic leadership, community outreach, and business innovation to make the Bay Area more responsive to the people who live there and increasingly sensitive to the environments we share.

Image credit:
College of Environmental Design. Accessed October 2, 2017.
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College of Environmental Design. Digital image. UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. Accessed October 2, 2017. https://ced.berkeley.edu/events-media/news/uc-berkeley-team-selected-to-design-adaptive-responses-to-bay-areas-rising
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