HOW TO REDESIGN THE BAY AREA TO FIGHT FUTURE CLIMATE DISASTERS

FastCompany: When the oldest restaurant in San Francisco was built in 1861, it sat on the waterfront of a creek, serving seafood caught in the neighborhood. The restaurant hasn’t moved, but the creek was buried underground in a culvert nearby, and the marsh that once surrounded the area has been developed, built on debris from the 1906 earthquake. The building now sits on Bayshore Boulevard, a street with several lanes of traffic, sandwiched between two freeways and across from a gas station and a parking lot.

The neighborhood is one of the parts of the Bay Area most at risk from flooding from rising sea levels and severe storms and from earthquakes. It’s also one of nine areas reimagined by teams of architects and designers in a year-long competition to create a “blueprint of resilience” for the region (largely focused on climate change and sea level rise, but focused on earthquakes, as well). The proposal for the area, located in an industrial corner of southeastern San Francisco, suggests partially uncovering the creek, both to better deal with flooding and to bring green space to a part of the city that lacks it. Continue reading here>>

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