Project: Resilient Bridgeport
Date: 2014
Role: Team member, re:ground llc
Team: Waggonner Ball Architects / unabridged Architecture / ARCADIS / Yale School of Forestry Management
Resilient Bridgeport grew out of the Rebuild by Design competition initiative, which leveraged HUD Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds towards developing community- and policy- based proposals to protect coastal communities most at risk from sea level rise, severe weather, and future uncertainties.
At a community engagement event in 2014, I acted as a sort of ‘design translator’ between the design team of architects, planners, engineers,risk analysts, and natural hazards mitigation specialists, and ecologists and the local stakeholders such as city officials, residents, and representatives of nonprofits advocating for affordable housing, access, and heritage preservation.
Our proposal – Resilient Bridgeport – sought to revitalize the waterfront of a postindustrial city struggling with reducing climate vulnerability, job retention, civic image. The plan encourages the stimulation of the downtown area through catalytic projects, such as a reconceptualization of the a channelized and inaccessible urban river – the Lower Pequonnock Watershed – by integrating riparian, urban, and coastal strategies.
Check out Resilient Bridgeport design team member Alan Plattus’ TEDxNatick Talk on Community Design for Climate Change.