On September 10th, ten interdisciplinary teams gathered at the Resilient by Design | Bay Area Challenge Kickoff Celebration in Richmond, CA.   The teams had been selected to participate in a design competition to craft innovative solutions enabling Bay Area communities to prepare for sea level rise, severe storms, flooding and earthquakes.  KMA (represented by Debbie Kern) is excited to participate as a member of the BionicTeam.  This team brings together experts with deep Bay Area knowledge who will collaborate to design, finance, and implement complex local resilience projects.  Along with Bionic and KMA, the other firms include Enterprise, Moffatt & Nichol, WRA, RMA, SF State, Baycat, Studio for Urban Projects, and Ball & Winter.   

The goal is for each team to create design proposals that will include specific adaptive strategies, restoration efforts and infrastructure upgrades, all to enhance resiliency at ten sites throughout the Bay Area.   All teams are currently involved in a research phase for the next few months, while a specific project site will be assigned to each team in December. The teams will present their collaborative design proposals in May 2018.   The proposals, which would help communities prepare for disaster before it strikes, could ideally be implemented as funding becomes available.  The high-visibility competition has potential to attract substantial grants and funding.   The Bay Area Challenge was modeled off a similar competiton in New York.