UB School of Architecture and Planning Selected as Partner for Remain’s Fourth Envision Resilience Challenge
Eight Universities Selected to Participate in the 2024 Design Studio and Community Engagement Initiative to Explore Climate Impacts in Portland and South Portland, Maine. Photo by Piper McCorkle
Published May 8, 2024
PORTLAND, Maine May 8, 2024 —The Envision Resilience Challenge, a multi-university design studio and community engagement initiative developed by Remain, announced today that its fourth year of programming will take place in Maine. The School of Architecture and Planning has been selected as one of eight university partners to participate in this year’s challenge.
Portland, South Portland and the Casco Bay Islands have been chosen as study sites for the 2024 fall design studio, which will convene community stakeholders and teams of students studying architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and environmental science.
Building on the success of its previous challenges in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 2021, Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 2022 and New Bedford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts, in 2023, the Envision Resilience Challenge will bring to the Greater Portland Region a leading network of students, faculty and researchers to engage with municipal and community leaders, business owners, local stakeholders and nonprofit and science organizations. The School of Architecture and Planning students and other participating schools will spend the fall 2024 semester diving deep into local challenges, researching pathways forward and proposing adaptive design solutions under climate impacts.
“Climate change is the defining issue of our time—but instead of fearing the future, this program asks us to reimagine the future we would like to see and then work toward it,” said Wendy Schmidt, founder of Remain. “The Envision Resilience program reminds us that when we collaborate and approach challenges with creativity, we can work toward a brighter future. The eight participating university teams bring the ability to merge spatial and social histories, community input and speculative futures that will become hopeful visions for Portland, Maine and other communities facing similar challenges.”
Following the fall semester design studio, the Envision Resilience Challenge facilitates community programming, events and an exhibition to showcase the design outcomes to the region. To date, the program has worked with 346 students, 70 community advisors from eight coastal communities and 22 student teams from 13 universities. The public is invited to follow along throughout the duration of the challenge at www.envisionresilience.org and via social media (@envisionresiliencechallenge). To learn more about the previous studios, explore the design outcomes of the 2021 Nantucket, 2022 Narragansett Bay and 2023 New Bedford and Fairhaven student teams.