Posted on 12/19/2008 8:43:58 AM PST by NormsRevenge
The impacts of climate change are a hot topic among scientists and environmental activists. Now the Bay Conservation and Development Commission wants to hear from another perspective: the design community.
The state agency is preparing to launch a $125,000 competition that will invite architects, planners and engineers to bring innovative proposals "to climate-proof the Bay Area," in the words of the competition outline.
The aim isn't to stop climate change from happening, say officials, or to build impregnable levees. The goal is to get designers thinking creatively about how to prepare for a world where the sea level might climb several feet - inundating large portions of the developed region unless something is done.
"We are looking for ideas that can lead to future standards about how to deal with rising tides," said Brad McCrea, a development design analyst for the commission. "We want to move the discussion forward."
The commission Thursday approved a $25,000 contract with David Meckel to manage the competition. This means selecting the design jury as well as framing the rules - such as deciding whether design teams will be asked to look at specific sites or respond to broader issues.
"There's an opportunity to suggest ideas that can be applied to our bay but have universal access," said Meckel, whose design competition work is a sideline to his role as director of research for the California College of the Arts. "If one of the results is a solution for protecting low-lying freeways, for example, other cities are welcome to steal it."
As now envisioned, $10,000 awards would go to each of the five entrants who present the most innovative schemes for adapting our urban region to natural changes. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Ideas anyone? Design away.
I fight global warming by running my Jeep 24 hours a day with the windows open and the air conditioning on max.
Yep! Build everything in stilts!
Every Freak in the bay area move to Indonesia
Shouldn’t the entire Bay Area have a giant condom wrapped around it, anyway.
That ought to work...
Would solve their problems, and a whole lot of ours too.
I have an interest in a company here in south Louisiana - I can offer you some spud barges on which to place your double-wides. Works very well with rising water and not so well during hurricanes.
Here is my suggestion. Completely bulldoze Jack London Square and the surrounding development. Then rebuild everything on a new foundation supported by 50 foot high stilts.
Where a stilt idea can't be accomplished spend 10 Quadrillion dollars bulldozing all homes and businesses in the low lying bay areas and move them on to the surrounding hills. Plant trees then in the now barren areas to soak up the carbon.
We can pay for this 10 Quadrillion urban redevelopment proposal by passing new fees on everything from gasoline to Milk Bone dog chews.
Bay area saved!
Where's my $10,000 award?
ding ding ding!! We have a winner!!! :-)
I vote for your solution to be encouraged upon others.
Silly Talk about a silly Millimeter by Silly Idiots with a Silly Imagination
Bury cooling tubes just under the surface of the ground, and install big fans everywhere.
Why is the sea level rising? Is it from all the ice and snow thanks to this year's unseasonably cold global warming? Or is California falling into the ocean again? Personally, I don't know what the hurry is all about. If the oceans really were rising and doing so at the slow rate the alarmists are predicting, people will simply move away...just like with New Orleans. That city is already underwater and no one lives there any more. "Problem" solved.
I can say what I’d like to do with the bay area - and it involves the F-15s I used to test along with some selected weaponry.
This past week in Wisconsin:
Sub-zero temperatures followed by over a foot of snow in this morning’s blizzard.
Yeah, sure feels like the world is warming.
Build an ark.
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