Derek Hoeferlin (senior lecturer in architecture), Ian Caine (lecturer in architecture), and Michael Heller (MArch09, MBA09) collaborated on one of the six winning proposals in the Rising Tides competition, hosted by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC).

The open international design competition called for ideas responding to sea-level rise in San Francisco Bay and beyond. The "100 Year Plan" proposed by Hoeferlin and Caine (co-leads, design + production) and Heller (research assistant) noted that rising tides were merely one symptom of a larger water crisis, and advocated for an ambitious, policy-based "toolkit" that trades the "watershed hopping" method of massive water transport for a more localized approach. They proposed fresh water via sustainable desalination and water recycling programs along with tidal marsh regeneration, powered and protected by Rising Tides over the course of the next 100 years.

The selection of six winners, who will share a total prize of $25,000, was an unexpected twist in announcing the competition results and illustrated just how many different promising solutions were offered. Juror Walter Hood said it best when he stated, "San Francisco Bay is not the place for a single idea. Taken as a whole, the six winning entries begin to tell a story about adaptation to sea level rise."

For more information, including the full list of winners and their projects, visit the Rising Tides website.