Resilient By Design has announced ten winning teams to cope with climate change and bring innovative community-based solutions for the San Francisco Bay area, which aims to strengthen San Francisco region’s resilience against sea level rise, severe storms, flooding and earthquakes.

Selected from a pool of 51 entries, 10 leading design teams have been named as HASSELL, Aecom, BIG, Bionic, James Corner Field Operations, TLS, Mithun, Base Landscape, Scape and Gensler.

Resilient By Design's Bay Area Challenge was developed as a collaborative research and design project to come up with innovative solutions to the region's possible natural disasters. Throughout a year-long collaborative research, 10 design teams will cooperate with local residents, public officials and local, national and international experts to develop innovative solutions to the issues brought on by climate change that San Francisco's region faces today.

"Rather than wait for a natural disaster, the San Francisco Bay Area is proactively reimagining a better future by creating a blueprint for resilience that harnesses Bay Area innovation and serves as a model for communities around the world," stated in the Resilient By Design's website.

Resilient By Design issued a design brief on May 31 and the jury selected ten winning teams comprising combinations of engineers, architects, designers and other experts to propose new implementable projects.

From September to the end of October, the design teams will tour East, North, South Bay areas to understand specific needs and vulnerabilities of communities, and ecosystems. Each team will receive will receive $100,000 at the completion of Collaborative Research Phase.

After this period, they will develop their site-specific conceptual design solutions in coordination with community groups and state and local government partners. 

"Design Teams work with local jurisdictions, community leaders and organizations, and Resilient by Design partners and consultants to develop detailed implementation plans," added the competition's website.

"Design Teams will primarily drive the work schedule; however, there will be dates where all the teams come together for midterm critiques, public events, and further learning on topics requested by the teams. These may include issues that are necessary to ensure the success of the ultimate project, such as local regulatory frameworks, public financing, state or federal government programs, etc."

Each team will receive $150,000 at the completion of Collaborative Design Phase. On November 15, each design team will publicly present three to five "design opportunities", giving a place of public input, before Research Advisory Committee matches one Design Opportunity to each Team.

Resilient by Design | Bay Area Challenge was modeled on New York Rebuild by Design, a successful program pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Earlier this year, the Rockefeller Foundation announced a $4.6 million grant to tackle San Francisco's regions toughest infrastructure needs under a new competition that will engage regional innovators, policy makers, designers, architects, developers, and others in developing creative, realistic and long-lasting infrastructure solutions.

Each team published a video explaining their approaches and design concepts for the Bay Area Challenge, which can be found in the competition's website. 

The 10 selected design teams include:

BIG + ONE + SHERWOOD
BionicTeam
Common Ground
HASSELL+MVRDV
Permaculture + Social Equity (P+SET)
Public Sediment
The All Bay Collective
The Field Operations Team
The Home Team
Team UPLIFT

Top image: San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, image courtesy of Chris Leipelt

> via Resilient By Design