Lessons for Future Resilient Design

Social equity is key, and relationship-building with communities must start on day one.

Community engagement should start at the inception of the process so communities can identify priorities and challenges, and then designers can work from that foundation with communities. Communities need to drive priorities, which could have been accomplished more aptly if the teams had been matched to sites earlier in the process. This would have allowed design teams more time to build relationships and trust with communities.

Source: Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge Assessment Report | Consensus Building Institute, 2018

Academic partnership provides insights and builds capacity for the future.

Integrating university students into the Challenge created the potential to increase the region’s overall capacity to integrate the concepts learned moving forward. The California College of the Arts and the University of California, Berkeley, were part of the All Bay Collective. UC Berkeley held eleven studios with students during the Challenge. The University of California, Davis, a key partner for Public Sediment, University of Pennsylvania, a partner for Bionic, and Stanford University all participated in the Challenge.

The research informed the final design opportunities and enhanced the Bay Area’s collective knowledge base about regional resilience.

Source: Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge Assessment Report | Consensus Building Institute, 2018

Co-development of regional strategies and team learning across sites should be encouraged and facilitated.

It is beneficial to have a pre-competitive space for teams to work together to coordinate project elements across the region. A few teams proposed design opportunities that addressed the entire Bay Area, but teams eventually focused on their particular site.

Greater flexibility in design team and advisory committee composition should be exercised in similar future competitions. Also, the Research Advisory Committee should include more diverse interests, especially related to social equity and community engagement.

Source: Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge Assessment Report | Consensus Building Institute, 2018

The importance of continuing community engagement and promoting large regional conversation among stakeholders about resilience must be recognized.

Maintaining the momentum and sense of urgency created by the Challenge is essential. It is equally critical to help communities and local agencies deepen their understanding of how these multi-system problems (i.e., climate change, displacement/gentrification, and infrastructure issues) affect one another and to explore how sea level rise and climate adaptation can be better integrated into existing, local planning efforts.

Source: Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge Assessment Report | Consensus Building Institute, 2018

Building upon the success of resilience planning across regions, local governments, regional agencies, nonprofit and private sector stakeholders are engaging in advancing climate adaptation and resilience in the Bay Area.

Projects include comprehensive climate vulnerability assessments, plans to improve infrastructure for resilience, the creation of new governance structures, and implementable projects to address sea level rise, drought and other projected effects of climate change.

Examples of programs include:

• The Sonoma County Regional Climate Authority
• The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) Adapting to Rising Tides (ART) program
• The Bay Area Regional Reliability Project (BARR)
• The Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)
• San Francisco Climate & Health Profile
• RISeR SF Bay
• Marin County C-SMART
• Sea Change San Mateo County
• Climate Ready North Bay
• The San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority

Read more in the San Francisco Bay Area Summary Report from California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment.