Resilient By Design: Common Ground

Resilient By Design: The Grand Bayway

Rather than wait for the next 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. RANA, in collaboration with Tom Leader Studio and the  “Common Ground” team,  led the effort to develop methods for arresting the affects of sea level rise at the San Pablo Bay marshes. Selected as one of the final twelve design teams in an international design competition, the Common Ground team was awarded the San Pablo Bay region as their study area. San Pablo bay is unique in that the rivers and streams that feed the bay from the north have much more potential to deliver sediment to the marshes compared to all other San Francisco Bay regions. Without allowing a healthy sediment supply to accumulate at the bay/marsh interface, the marshes are threatened to be drowned as sea level rises.

As the last bastion of significant marshland in the Bay Area, the project team regarded the design solutions for harnessing the sediment supply as the highest priority for our project area. RANA developed strategies to allow the rivers and their tributaries to drop more sediment to the marshes by allowing the fluvial processes to more closely mimic natural stream systems. In addition, our team developed innovative methods for the delivery of sediment through mechanical means, even through the use of existing, underutilized rail lines. Finally, our team identified the huge and underrecognized value of the San Pablo Bay marshes as a recreational gem. The San Pablo Bay has an image problem. RANA designed and distributed waterproof map that encourages the exploration of the kayak-able tidal networks and bikeable levees so that everyone can witness the enormous marshlands that are right at their doorstep.

LOCATION

San Pablo Bay, CA

CLIENT

Resilient Bay Area, The Rockefeller Foundation

TEAM

Tom Leader Studio, Exploratorium, Michael Maltzan, Sitelab Urban Studio, Lotus Water

COMPLETED

2018