Professor Samantha Solano’s 3rd year Graduate Studio and Professor Frank Sleegers’ Senior Urban Design Studio were selected by Envision Resilience to participate in their 2023 Design Challenge focusing on climate change narratives in the towns of New Bedford and Fairhaven, MA. UMass students will propose imaginative solutions to the current and future impacts of sea level rise and the cascading failures of climate change in New Bedford’s South End area.
On September 22, the studios embarked on their first site visit to New Bedford and met with community planners and stakeholders across various sectors of government and non-profit organizations. Students spent two days engaging with the local landscape and witnessed a multitude of vulnerabilities with tremendous potential to envision new grounds.
This fall, UMass studios join a cohort of studios from Northeastern University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Florida, University of Virginia, Howard University, and UMass Dartmouth, who are each uniquely interrogating sites and issues across the area.
Stay tuned for more updates on LARP's Instagram and Facebook accounts as our studios navigate through global climatic issues and creatively envision new futures for New Bedford and beyond.