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Public Sediment for Alameda Creek


Union City, CA and Freemont, CA, 2017

Commission:
Bay Area Resilient by Design Challenge

Team:


SCAPE (K. Orff, G. Wirth, G. Morgis, N. Voron, N. Shannon, and P. Brashear)UC Davis (B. Ferguson, C. Napawan, B. Snyder, C. Keener) Buoyant Ecologies (A. Marcus, E. Jones, M. Ikeda)Dredge Research Collaborative (B. Milligan, J. Holzman, R. Holmes)TS Studio (L. Stickles, W. Yang) Arcadis (C. Devick)
PUBLIC SEDIMENT FOR ALAMEDA CREEK is a proposal to address the challenge of sediment scarcity along the vulnerable urban edges of Fremont, Union City, and Newark. The baylands require a flow of sediment to keep pace with sea level rise, however sediment is trapped upstream in dams and flood control channels. To bring sediment to the baylands, we looked upstream to the largest local tributary that feeds the Bay, Alameda Creek. Our proposal aims to redesign this waterbody to create functional systems that sustainably transport sediment, engage people, and provide habitat for migrating fish.

Our team proposes that adaptation to sea level rise must begin upstream, in tributaries. Public Sediment for Alameda Creek unlocks the creek to feed downstream baylands with sediment and sustain protective tidal ecosystems as the climate changes. Our project moves beyond the tidal edge to span four geographies (uplands, creek, baylands, and bay). Selected as one of ten projects by the Bay Area Resilient by Design Jury said “a model for research, design, and practice around the bay and beyond.”

resilientbayarea.org/unlock-alameda-creek

Project Awards


The American Society of Landscape Architects Professional National Awards, Honor Award: Analysis and Planning (2019)
American Society of Landscape Architects, New York Chapter, Design Honor Award in Analysis, Planning, Research, and Communications (2019)
2019 Great Places Award from the Environmental Design Research Association with Claire Napawan and Brett Snyder
American Institute of Architects California, Merit Award (2018)
The Architect’s Newspaper Best Design Award (2018)


Publications:


Resilient by Design: Bay Area Challenge Book: Public Sediment chapter, p. 130-147 
The Alameda Creek Atlas, Resilient by Youth Engagement, Youth Media Creation on the Climate Change Crisis: Hear Our Voices, Routledge Press, 2023 
The Alameda Creek Atlas is both a literal and conceptual atlas—a toolkit for community engagement. The Alameda Creek watershed is the largest local watershed flowing into San Francisco Bay. It is vulnerable to climate impacts due to a century of development in the lower floodplain and the flood control systems built to protect that development. Resilience to these impacts can be built by reimagining how the creek is managed. That effort requires engaging community members and stakeholders to help define the complex socio-ecological conditions of this place. By gathering people’s stories — through physical models and creative prompts like recipe-sharing — we found where values intersected and added depth to design concepts, moving beyond the purely engineered solutions of the past. The resulting digital and analogue atlas flattened the hierarchy between designers, planners, city officials, and the public into a single multilingual artifact.
© Beth Ferguson, 2025