Call 415-274-2222

Lab explores projects to lessen effects of sea level rise on SF Bay

February 2, 2017
|In Landscape Architecture
|By Landscape Arcitecture Staff Writer

By John King, San Francisco Chronicle

January 22, 2017 Updated: January 23, 2017 5:02pm

Luna Taylor walks off of Pier 14 during the peak of the high tide along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015. Projections suggest that sea level rise could make such tides commonplace — which is part of the reason for Bay Area: Resilient by Design, a design competition where 10 multi-disciplinary teams will be awarded $250,000 each to explore how sea level rise can be managed in the decades ahead. The competition was announced this week and will run 15 months. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle
Luna Taylor walks off of Pier 14 during the peak of the high tide along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015. Projections suggest that sea level rise could make such tides commonplace — which is part of the reason for Bay Area: Resilient by Design, a design competition where 10 multi-disciplinary teams will be awarded $250,000 each to explore how sea level rise can be managed in the decades ahead. The competition was announced this week and will run 15 months.

The Bay Area will soon be a laboratory that tests how urban regions can prepare for the likelihood of sea level rise.

That’s the aim of a $5.8 million design competition being announced this week that will select 10 multidisciplinary teams and assign each a different bayside setting. Each team will have $250,000 to work with and is expected to come up with a proposal that not only looks good but can become reality and has the support of the community where it is located.

Dubbed Bay Area: Resilient by Design, the competition has been slow to get off the ground because of fundraising difficulties. Now the Rockefeller Foundation in New York has agreed to provide $4.6 million to pull off the ambitious 15-month effort.

“This is a great opportunity for our region to start thinking about what the future holds and how to manage that future in a way that’s exciting,” said Allison Brooks, executive director of the Bay Area Regional Collaborative and one of 12 members of the competition’s executive committee.

The competition is modeled on Rebuild by Design, which was started in 2013 in New York and New Jersey. That effort was part of larger recovery efforts in response to the cataclysmic damage from Hurricane Sandy a few months earlier in 2012.

This time the hope is to get ahead of the curve.

“We were drawn to the idea of working with a region on a competition that’s about preparation, not recovery,” said Dr. Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which also had a central role in Rebuild by Design. “I love the idea that the setting is the Bay Area, which is so well-known for its energy and innovation.”

The setting is also known for the body of water that defines it, an estuary that extends roughly 50 miles from San Jose in the south to Napa County in the north. That range exposes it to the threats posed by sea level rise, which is related to climate change and is expected to increase in coming decades. Tides could climb as much as 66 inches by 2100 in the Bay Area, according to forecasts done in 2012 by the National Research Council.

Some of those vulnerabilities were explored in The Chronicle’s Rising Reality series last year, from environmentally rich wetlands that would be engulfed to highways that would be submerged during even moderate storms. If nothing is done during the next few decades, for instance, a severe storm coupled with high tides could send water spilling into San Francisco’s Market Street subway.

Looking out over Mission Bay from the upper deck of AT&T Park home of the San Francisco Giants on Wed. Aug. 17, 2016. The parking lot shown is part of a development project at risk from sea level rise — as is much of the Bay Area’s shoreline — so planners want the height of the land raised by several feet before construction begins. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Looking out over Mission Bay from the upper deck of AT&T Park home of the San Francisco Giants on Wed. Aug. 17, 2016. The parking lot shown is part of a development project at risk from sea level rise — as is much of the Bay Area’s shoreline — so planners want the height of the land raised by several feet before construction begins.

 

The Embarcadero meets the Bay as seen from the Alcatraz Ferry, on Thursday June 5, 2014, in San Francisco, Ca. Projections suggest that sea level rise in coming decades could place the Embarcadero and other shoreline districts in the Bay Area at risk — which is part of the reason for Bay Area: Resilient by Design, a competition where 10 multi-disciplinary teams will be awarded $250,000 each to explore how sea level rise can be prepared for here. The competition, which will be funded largely by New York’s Rockefeller Foundation, was announced on Jan. 23, 2017 and will run 15 months. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

The Embarcadero meets the Bay as seen from the Alcatraz Ferry, on Thursday June 5, 2014, in San Francisco, Ca. Projections suggest that sea level rise in coming decades could place the Embarcadero and other shoreline districts in the Bay Area at risk — which is part of the reason for Bay Area: Resilient by Design, a competition where 10 multi-disciplinary teams will be awarded $250,000 each to explore how sea level rise can be prepared for here. The competition, which will be funded largely by New York’s Rockefeller Foundation, was announced on Jan. 23, 2017 and will run 15 months.

 

A pole placed at Crissy Field in 2009 marked the different levels of rising ocean waters that may occur due to global warming in coming decades. Concerns related to sea level rise in the region have only grown since then — which is part of the reason for Bay Area: Resilient by Design, a design competition where 10 multi-disciplinary teams will be awarded $250,000 each to explore how sea level rise can be managed in the decades ahead. The competition was announced on Jan. 23, 2017 and will run 15 months. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

A pole placed at Crissy Field in 2009 marked the different levels of rising ocean waters that may occur due to global warming in coming decades. Concerns related to sea level rise in the region have only grown since then — which is part of the reason for Bay Area: Resilient by Design, a design competition where 10 multi-disciplinary teams will be awarded $250,000 each to explore how sea level rise can be managed in the decades ahead. The competition was announced on Jan. 23, 2017 and will run 15 months.

 

Read the full article here!

Share Post
X