San Rafael is one of ten sites around the Bay Area included in the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge, a year-long collaborative design challenge to help Bay Area communities improve their resilience to flooding, natural disasters and rising seas. Youth in Arts’ Architects in Schools leaders Shirl Buss and Rich Storek, working with their fourth grade students from Laurel Dell Elementary School, helped to bring the Flood Fair to life with their young energy, beautiful scale models, and engaged fourth grade interviewers and docents.
The Bionic Team including Bionic Landscape, WXY Studio, and PennDesign are working with the San Rafael community to prepare a suite of design ideas for the San Rafael community. The Bionic Team began the challenge asking, “Where in the Bay Area can our expertise help?” And now matched with San Rafael, they’ve been asking residents “What needs to be done and where are we starting from?” Their first public event was the Flood Fair, held this Saturday at Pickleweed Park.
Thank you to Laurel Dell Fourth graders for helping to promote the event and making it relevant for all ages:
The Flood Fair was wonderful! Considering the challenging weather and date, there was a rousing turnout of local community members, allies and leaders. The student participation added an important dimension to the overall effort to inform, engage and enlist the community in our response to Sea Level Rise! Students interviewed visitors and asked them:
Thanks Mr. Pepe Gonzalez for your enthusiastic support of the students! Thanks again Marcel, Sarah and Rich, for creating such compelling “hands-on” activities: the ice melt, the “flow” of water, the Flo Mo and all the displays, food and energy!
Members of the community admire the scale model
Students made a model of San Rafael, and Laurel Dell after sea level rise
Thank you for your support, California Arts Council!
