ECOBLOCK

When we think of resilience and community empowerment, the democratization and localization of energy takes on critical importance. This project, sponsored by the California Institute for Energy and Environment at UC Berkeley, seeks to shake the paradigm of urban development through localized, block-scale, community-based sustainability initiatives across 24 lots in a low-income neighborhood in East Oakland. As a community is made of up component parts, in addition to a shared, solar-generated backup power system (pictured below), the project involves all-electric home energy upgrades, water efficiency retrofits, shared EV charging, and localized stormwater management strategies. The goal was to create scalable and replicable strategies that communities across California could deploy to rapidly decarbonize and adapt to a changing world. Nothing in nature exists in isolation, and through strategic, cooperative, place-based interventions such as this, communities can become more interdependent and resilient.

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design © Siegel & Strain Architects