Saving San Mateo Coast Project Manifesto

Climate change impacts are already being felt across the globe, and the case for planned approaches to climate change adaptation is clear. Sea level rise is one of the primary and most devastating impacts from climate change, and it is of critical importance in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly for San Mateo County (County), which is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the San Francisco Bay to the east.

San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California. San Mateo had an estimated 2019 population of 104,430. It has a Mediterranean climate and is known for its rich history. The biggest economic contributors to the city include the Medical Center, one of the local school districts, and Sony’s Sony Interactive Entertainment division. Finally, being in the center of the San Francisco Bay Area, it has many ways to travel between the major cities of that area. Through analyzing the social factors related to San Mateo, such as the number of houses, average income, population, and other natural factors, such as the situation of sea level and energy consumption. I draw the conclusion that the region faces three major risks: the destruction of the city by sea level rise, unfair housing distribution and high energy consumption.

Based on the completion time, which is 2050. The construction work from 2020 to 2050 should be completed in stages. So, I derive strategies that apply to the design of the site from the study cases. The combination of wetland and floating house form Tidal city, Bay area. land reclamation from Steigereiland, Amsterdam. high-rise building to increase the number of housing as well as reasonable response to the sea level rise brought about by groundwater problems from Hamburg’s Hafencity. And Ecological block construction from part of polder model, Netherlands. And the five-stage design strategy are mainly about turning parts of the green space into floating houses at different times and building them to cope with sea level rise. Add new green Spaces and wetlands to drive decarbonization. Transfer the population of the community, demolish old houses, and put new houses and functional zoning, to increase housing capacity and housing types, maintain housing equity and increase job opportunities.

The design needs to meet three main objectives: Job, Justice and Decarbonization. To add job opportunities, I will create new jobs by placing new business districts within the design area, such as the waiter/Education/Technicians/Marketing/Network services etc. And the floating house area also provided jobs like Agricultural/Aquaculture/The gardener/The tourism industry.

Household justice is the problem that I defined in this area. Currently they are relatively affluent communities. Through early stage of the research, I found the problem of native Americans losing land in the Bay Area, and poverty persists in the eastern part of San Mateo. The design will give more land back to native people. Basically, they will be resettled in the floating house area. For people whose income below ＄10,000. The design provides affordable house to them. They are the tall buildings in the western part of this area. After the plan, the number of house unit will change from 1100 to 2970.

For Decarbonization, the key is to reduce the carbon production. There are two strategies One is to increase the number of trees, open green space, and wet land so that they can store much CO2. So, I added community parks, bay park and wetland in the area. The second strategy is to build microgrid to improve energy efficiency. Each block is a microgrid. They are isolated from the central grid network. Electric are generated by turbine and solar energy. Part of them is used for community power supply and part of them is stored in the battery. It can be used in the event of a disaster or bad weather. The energy is collected mainly by solar panels and TESLA walls. And the batteries are settled along the streets, for it can be used for charging electric cars at the same time. After the plan, the amount of carbon storage will change from 102400kg to 108000kg per day.

Finally, the whole region will form cooperation system that is influenced by ecological, economic, and social equity factors. The regional construction method aiming to involve more communities and residents in the process of decision-making. Just like Room for the river project in Netherland.