Northeastern University’s Return to the Envision Resilience Challenge

Northeastern University’s lead professor of the Envision Resilience Studio, Sara Jensen Carr (center), with two participating students at the Envision Resilience 2022 exhibition opening weekend.

By Jolie Jaycobs

The first installment of the Envision Resilience Challenge brought together student teams studying architecture, sustainable design, urban ecology and more, from five universities along the East Coast. Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Florida, Northeastern University College of Arts, Media and Design, the University of Miami and the Yale School of Architecture collaborated on the first iteration of the Challenge on Nantucket Island, to draft creative responses to sea level rise. In bringing these programs together, Nantucket reaped the benefits of many brilliant minds in order to better imagine how the community can prepare for the rising seas that we know are on their way.

This year, the Envision Resilience Challenge expanded to new universities and a new coastal town. The Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge welcomed back Northeastern University and the University of Florida, while inviting new participants from the Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Williams University, Syracuse University, and the University of Rhode Island. 

Upon reaching the pinnacle event showcase of this year's Narragansett Bay project, we are looking back on the past two years with our returning Northeastern team. To better understand Northeastern's experience with Envision Resilience, I spoke with participating students, Nora Masler and Malav Mehta, as well as assistant professor at Northeastern’s School of Architecture, Sara Jensen Carr, who led the Envision Resilience studio for the past two years.

Northeastern students, including Nora and Malav, on an Envision Resilience site visit in Providence, Rhode Island with advisor Chris Waterson, General Manager for Waterson Terminal Services.

Carr’s sustainable design work focuses on the built environment and public health, but she also runs studios on resiliency at Northeastern. That work connected her and her team to Envision Resilience Nantucket. She shared that after having such a hands-on and engaging experience in 2021, the team wanted to come back for Narragansett. 

“[There was an] excitement about an opportunity to study another community,” said Professor Carr. “Northeastern is also proximate to Providence, only a train ride away.” Carr expressed that in some ways that made this round of the Challenge even more tangible for students. 

In contrast to the 2021 iteration of the Challenge, which was largely limited to virtual gatherings due to COVID-19, the Narragansett Bay Challenge allowed students to visit sites during their project development. Professor Carr said that this inspired new ideas in students that they might not have otherwise come up with. However, the virtual format had its benefits as well. It allowed for detailed virtual site visits and interviews. Despite the remote nature of the Nantucket Challenge, Carr noted that the studio still felt the deep connection their work had to the island community, and her team was able to travel to Nantucket in June 2021 for the community presentation.

As  Professor Carr explained, it was a natural fit to return to the collaborative, open-source Envision Resilience Challenge. 

“The environment, landscape, and health - it all intersects…It’s important that my students are exposed to interdisciplinary work and building an understanding that resilience encompasses so much. And it includes so many people, from community members to subject experts.”

“Our School of Architecture is very interdisciplinary in its nature. Many students combine an architecture major with civil engineering or environmental engineering, so this Challenge really fits into that interdisciplinary model. I believe that resiliency has to happen across many sectors and that framework, along with this Challenge, is preparation for multifaceted work.” 

The Envision Resilience Challenge model  provides exposure to real world, complex examples of climate resiliency. It also allows schools from up and down the East Coast to collaborate and pool resources, in an extremely unique way.  

Nora and Malav also provided great first-hand insight to the experience of working on the Narragansett Bay Challenge. Malav is an undergraduate architecture student in the class of 2024. When discussing Northeastern's Providence site he explained “the site was kind of caught between the industrial reminins of its past and the need for a more resilient future.” 

Students were challenged with creating imaginative solutions around how to face that resilient future, while preserving the community’s history and character. This presents no small task. 

“It's very easy to get saddened by [climate change],” said Malav. “But being a part of this Envision Resilience Challenge and seeing all the experts that are coming together, and learning about all the work we can do to really tackle these issues is very reassuring.”

Nora, a graduate student studying Urban Planning and Policy, echoed this sentiment. 

A historic photo of Providence harbor, 1906, showcasing the city’s industrial past.

“[I was inspired] seeing the diversity of thought and professionals from so many seemingly different backgrounds bring their skills and their knowledge to address a common global issue,” she said.

However, in the process of that collaboration she asked, “How do we bring it back to the local level? How can we be creative about the solutions and make them tailored to those who will live with whatever decisions are made?”

In an attempt to begin to answer these questions, Northeastern's program focused closely on researching and understanding their project areas on an interpersonal level. In Nora’s words, “one thing that was unique was the amount of time spent researching and having an understanding of the breadth of the issue and precedents for solutions,” said Nora. “Getting to actually visit the site and talk to people involved in the area was also hugely important to my own personal design”.

Recognizing the critical nature of this holistic approach to architecture has allowed students in the challenge to widen their understanding of how to approach communities on the forefront of sea level rise. 

“Community engagement has to be your priority,” Malav said. “For example, I know a lot of people refer to Amsterdam for the design solutions that are implemented there and people try to take those solutions and apply them elsewhere like The Philippines, Malaysia, etc. Then they see that the solutions don't work because obviously something that works in Europe is not always going to work in South Eastern Asia. So, how can you engage with the community in the right way to not only create the best designs for them but to also give them a sense of ownership over the solution? So that it's not ‘okay we're giving you this design.’ It's more like ‘okay this is your design. You played an instrumental part in it.’” 

Nora’s resilient underpass design.

“There’s a balance between vision and practicality,” said Nora. “[We need to walk] the line between being really visionary and not limiting our thinking based off of what has worked in the past–because climate is such an enormous challenge I don't think we can limit ourselves to what's worked in the past–while also considering real tangible kind of nuts and bolts pieces of it like insurance and how this actually plays out in the real world.”

Malav left me with the thoughtful message that one thing he will carry with him from this experience is how “architecture really has the power to make change, if not systematic, then at least on the individual level.” 

“I think when we talk about grassroots campaigns or grassroots solutions, architecture has the distinct ability to be a concrete part of solutions and I think that's why design in general is such a powerful tool,” he said. “So as an architect, [contributing to that change] has to be my life's goal if I want to be a designer in this day and age.”

Northeastern University’s teams have brought passion and diligence to this challenge for two years in a row, in order to support communities on the forefront of climate change. The Narragansett Bay rendition of the Challenge inspired communities in the Narragansett Bay with a blueprint forward in the face of sea level rise.  It brought students tangible, community-based work experience that they will carry forward into accomplished careers. We are so glad to have some returning teams, while simultaneously bringing more schools and students into the fold of Envision Resilience. Together, we have learned that many minds make brilliant work and we cannot wait to see what comes next.

About the author: Jolie grew up on Nantucket Island. She graduated from Haverford College in 2020 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies. Since then she has worked for a few nonprofits in environmental advocacy and education. She now works in faculty support at the Harvard Business School. When she visits the island Jolie still loves to spend time exploring Nantucket’s beautiful natural places through biking, running and sailing.