HASSEL + (HASSELL, MVRDV, Deltares, Goudappel, Lotus Water, Civic Edge, Idyllist, Hatch, Page & Turnbull) is designing new initiatives in San Mateo County to avoid catastrophes derived from climate change.

The HASSEL+ team proposes the creation of collection points and connections from the center of the cities to the coastline. These connections work as streets for water withdrawal and water management in case of emergency.
 

Description of project by MVRDV and HASSEL+

The HASSELL+ team understands water designing for water, living with water and the immense social potential that waterfront places offer communities when they are connected to them. HASSELL, MVRDV, Deltares, Goudappel, Lotus Water, Civic Edge, Idyllist, Hatch, Page & Turnbull are drawn to Resilient by Design through an acute understanding of the social, cultural, economic and ecological potential that research-led design can unlock for waterfront communities.

In partnership with local experts - Lotus Water, Civic Edge, Page & Turnbull, Hatch and Idyllist - the team brings to this challenge a wealth of experience. Experience in researching, listening and engaging with communities, and designing, prototyping and delivering integrated solutions. The aim is to design and deliver places and systems that improve the physical and social resilience of communities while performing vital daily and emergency functions for those communities.

Revitalised public spaces that collect and connect people and water

For the collaborative research phase of the competition, HASSELL+ re-imagined a series of San Francisco waterfront communities as vibrant, fundamentally public places primed for everyday use – but also vital for environmental and emergency needs. Their response was inspired by the way the region’s communities used open spaces during both the 1906 San Francisco earthquake – one of the deadliest in US history – and the recent, devastating Northern California wildfires. HASSELL+ envisioned a network structure of green spaces, creeks and revived high streets that would serve as points of collection, connection and water management from the ridgeline to the shoreline and across the bay via an enhanced ferry network. Recharged ‘connectors’ – streets and creeks – and new ‘collectors’ – responsive, adaptable open spaces – would become places for everyday gathering, big events and disaster assembly. Together, they could ultimately make the Bay Area more physically and socially resilient.

Sites and programs co-designed with the local community

The team now has the opportunity to apply its ‘collect and connect’ toolkit to proposed sites in South San Francisco. At Colma Creek, HASSELL+ has imagined a new Shoreline Park. Meanwhile, Grand Avenue will become a vital community hub with a drop-in storefront people can visit during the design phase. The team’s design process will draw heavily on local voices and insights to ensure that design solutions – which will be presented in May – reflect the community’s needs. In addition to the drop-in centre, city
residents will be able to access a digital platform to learn about adapting for resilience and get involved in decision making.

Designing better waterfront cities – a range of international perspectives

Since the challenge launched last May, it’s received an outpouring of support from elected officials across all nine counties in the Bay Area. San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Dave Pine sees it as an opportunity to draw on the technical expertise of design teams, think creatively, and ultimately, create lasting change in the county.

The team headed by HASSELL are one of ten teams selected by Resilient by Design, modelled after the successful Rebuild by Design challenge that addressed infrastructure needs in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut following the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy. The program is tied to The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities network, which aims to support 100 cities to build resilience for the 21st-century. The HASSELL+ team is an international team of experts who understands designing and living with water, alongside considering the potential that waterfront locations have for better connected and resilient communities.

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Architects
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MVRDV.- Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries
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Design Team
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Nathalie de Vries, Jeroen Zuidgeest with Kristina Knauf and Vedran Skansi
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Collaborators
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HASSELL+ (HASSELL, MVRDV, Deltares, Goudappel, Lotus Water, Frog Design, Civic Edge, Idyllist, Hatch, Page & Turnbull)
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Client
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Resilient by Design
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Program
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Masterplan, 800 kilometers of shoreline
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MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Built projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.

Current projects include a variety of housing projects in the Netherlands, France, China, India, and other countries; a community centre in Copenhagen and a cultural complex in Roskilde, Denmark, a public art depot in Rotterdam, the transformation of a mixed use building in central Paris, an office complex in Shanghai, and a commercial centre in Beijing, and the renovation of an office building in Hong Kong. MVRDV is also working on large scale urban masterplans in Bordeaux and Caen, France and the masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain. Larger scale visions for the future of greater Paris, greater Oslo, and the doubling in size of the Dutch new town Almere are also in development.

MVRDV first published a manifesto of its work and ideas in FARMAX (1998), followed by MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), and more recently The Vertical Village (with The Why Factory, 2012) and the firm’s first monograph of built works MVRDV Buildings (2013). MVRDV deals with issues ranging from global sustainability in large scale studies such as Pig City, to small, pragmatic architectural solutions for devastated areas such as New Orleans.

The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. One hundred architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation. MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors.

Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.

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HASSELL is a leading international design practice with studios in Australia, China, South East Asia and the United Kingdom.

Recent projects include Shanghai’s Hongkou District on the Huangpu Waterfront, Sky Central in London, First Light Pavilion at Jodrell Bank in the UK,  Resilient South City in San Francisco, Perth’s Optus Stadium, the new Melbourne Metro Tunnel, Sixty Martin Place in Sydney, and Brisbane’s Cross River Rail projects. 
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