Graphic Adaptation
In a bid for stability in evolving Amsterdam, a creative studio spearheads its own bold HQ. By Giovanna Dunmall
To address rising sea levels along a storied coast, designers are proposing a string of “collection and connection points,” each of them contributing to region-wide resilience
Since its postwar heyday, the concept of “urban renewal” has acquired a bad reputation, recalling a hubristic era in which city planners attempted to fix urban problems by imposing grandiose schemes. None of that flies anymore. Most urbanists now agree that good city-building must be participatory and flexible, engaging communities directly. But how does one create sensitive, community-level designs when the biggest problem of our time — climate change — requires a coordinated response?
This was the question that Kristina Knauf, an architect at Rotterdam-based MVRDV, contemplated when participating in the Resilient by Design Challenge — a competition, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, to come up with smart resiliency schemes for the San Francisco Bay Area. Working with a team led by the international firm Hassell, Knauf helped develop a new concept: collection and connection points. These areas consist of an upper community hub (that is, a “collector” area, on high ground) and a lower hub (a “connector” area, adjacent to the waterfront, that’s linked to the upper hub by a creek, canal or street). Both hubs encompass public spaces containing whatever amenities the community needs — parks, fire halls, cafés, libraries. They are also built to collect and channel floodwater from the high-ground hub to a reservoir at the low point, adjacent to the Bay. (After it has been cleaned, the water can then be released, gradually, into the sea.)
Based on this concept, the Hassell-led team subsequently came up with a specific collect-and-connect design for South San Francisco, an industrial region containing a waterway called Colma Creek. The plan proposes widening and greening the creek, which connects Orange Memorial Park (a green space on high ground) to the shoreline (where a new park containing flood-management measures and spaces would be built). It also calls for creekside promenades, a pool and playgrounds. But this is just one variation on a highly adaptable theme. Any community can adopt the connection–collection prototype according to its needs. Each iteration, done in its own way and on its own timeline, would contribute to wider resilience. “We are creating guidelines and toolkits,” Knauf explains, noting that insensitive, large-scale planning rarely gets public buy-in. “You need to invite residents to take action on their own.”