A starting point for designing adaptations to sea level rise in South Florida; publication concludes Research phase of Keeping Current: A Sea Level Rise Challenge for Greater Miami

New York, NY, May 8, 2018 — Van Alen Institute today announces the publication of the Keeping Current Resource Guide, the first product of its multi-year design initiative, Keeping Current: A Sea Level Rise Challenge for Greater Miami.

As South Florida mobilizes to build and retrofit billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure, Van Alen is leading the Keeping Current initiative to ensure that public spending takes into account new and changing circumstances due to rising sea levels.

“During Keeping Current, Van Alen draws from our 124+ years of experience, independent status, and self-raised funds,” says Executive Director David van der Leer, “to expand the city-making dialogue and make it more inclusive and effective. With the publication of the Keeping Current Resource Guide to climate adaptation design best practices, Van Alen shares integrated knowledge with a world in need of creative solutions to new urban and environmental problems.”

“South Florida is taking climate change seriously and working with Van Alen to bring the best minds to the table for how to protect our cities and citizens,” says Jane Gilbert. “Van Alen’s Resource Guide pulls together best practices and recommendations for how to plan, design, build, and maintain stronger, safer buildings, infrastructure, and landscapes to better serve everyone living in our coastal communities.”

“The Resource Guide provides the most current knowledge from across disciplines and communities around the world that are dealing with sea level rise,” says Van Alen Competitions Project Manager Kokei Otosi. “By sharing it with both seasoned professionals and the designers and planners of the future, we aim to help the Miami area transform and improve the lives of its people.”

Even in fair weather, the City of Miami’s low-lying streets now flood on a regular basis, with the encroaching salt waters of the Atlantic Ocean causing transit problems, contaminating fresh water supplies, and damaging businesses and homes. Luxury real estate developers are scoping affordable areas in inland communities as sites for future waterfront property, threatening displacement and gentrification.

Van Alen recognized the need to engage community residents, climate scientists, and regional “city makers” – architects, municipal officials, landscape architects, urban planners, real estate developers, and engineers – in the process of planning, designing and building public facilities and infrastructure to withstand the effects of the changing climate. Keeping Current is Van Alen’s two-year commitment to working with South Florida and taking this inclusive and holistic approach. Following a kick-off Summit in November 2017, the Keeping Current Resource Guide is the latest milestone reached during this ambitious project.

The Resource Guide is a compilation of reports, articles, online mapping tools, and other expert-reviewed information about urban strategies for adapting to climate change. It will guide interdisciplinary teams who apply to Keeping Current’s upcoming design competitions or work on any of the numerous infrastructure projects planned for the region. It can also be useful to any city-maker around the world who needs to address the challenges of sea level rise.

Subsequent phases of Keeping Current will include competitions for the design and implementation of two Miami area public facilities in partnership with local municipalities, a summer design program and competition for high school students called Climate Design Lab, and an exhibition and conference to share lessons-learned and highlight additional opportunities for collaboration in the region and beyond.

About Keeping Current: A Sea Level Rise Challenge for Greater Miami

Keeping Current is a series of initiatives seeking innovative solutions to protect South Florida’s 6 million residents from the potentially catastrophic consequences of sea level rise. To fund the initiative, Van Alen raised $850,000 from The Rockefeller Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Miami Foundation, Terra, and Target.

Keeping Current harnesses Van Alen’s 124-plus years of experience organizing design competitions to help South Florida residents gain a better understanding of the effects of sea-level rise. Further information and a comprehensive list of our project partners and collaborators are posted on Van Alen’s website.

About Van Alen’s Climate Adaptation Design Initiatives

Keeping Current is part of Van Alen Institute’s broader inquiry into how communities can adapt to climate change, and how community engagement practices can be redefined. Van Alen has been exploring these issues through multiple initiatives over the past six years:

• Shore to Core, a design and research competition, invited professionals to reimagine downtown West Palm Beach as a dynamic, resilient waterfront city.
• Crossroads Conversations is a public program series that invites passersby from all walks of life to engage in thoughtful dialogue about pressing issues of our time in iconic public spaces.
• Rebuild by Design was an initiative of President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to address the structural and environmental vulnerabilities that Hurricane Sandy exposed in communities throughout the region and developing fundable solutions to protect residents from future climate events.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Keeping Current: Work to Date and Looking Ahead

Working with an interdisciplinary group of climate adaptation advisors from diverse fields including policy, architecture, real estate development, water management, and biology, Van Alen launched Keeping Current in fall 2017. The release of the Resource Guide concludes the Research phase of the program.

The Research phase began with a Summit on November 16, 2017, when scholars from the University of Miami (UM), University of Florida (UF), Florida International University (FIU), and Florida Atlantic University (FAU) met with professionals from government and non-profit organizations. Van Alen moderated a discussion of best practices and solutions for development in the region, building on the Southeast Florida Regional Compact on Climate Change Compact (“Compact”) recommendations.

The Compact was initiated in 2009 to coordinate climate change mitigation and adaptation activities across county lines in southeast Florida. Keeping Current Summit attendees reviewed changes and lessons learned in the eight years since the Compact was executed in 2010, with the aim of developing new data standards, design and implementation guidelines to inform the sustainable design of buildings, parks, infrastructure, and other public works in the region.

The Van Alen Institute Keeping Current Resource Guide is the outcome of the Summit, with the scholars’ research findings and recommendations compiled and carefully reviewed by Van Alen, university representatives, Miami-Dade County and City of Miami officials, and the project Advisory Board.

With representation from design and urban planning disciplines as well as geological, marine and atmospheric sciences, public health education, and environmental engineering, the Resource Guide aggregates resources for holistic regional adaptation to climate change.

This summer, Van Alen, in collaboration with the Cleo Institute and Miami-Dade County, will run a summer design program for local high school students called Climate Design Lab. Later this year and into 2019, Van Alen is working with municipal partners to issue briefs for two design competitions for Miami area public facilities. These will include detailed information about each site and its social, economic, and physical context, as well as the Keeping Current Resource Guide for context and direction.

The first competition, to be announced by the City of Miami with a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) in summer 2018, will focus on Jose Marti Park, located along the Miami River in Miami’s Little Havana. The winning team, to be selected by the City, will work in partnership with Van Alen to develop a resilient redesign of the park through a robust community engagement process and in consideration for solution strategies through the lenses of ecology, economy, and equity.

Keeping Current will conclude with an exhibition and conference to share lessons-learned and highlight additional opportunities for collaboration in the region and beyond.