Adaptability

Adaptation to variable environments enables survival and brings forth opportunities. Structural adaptations are modifications at the core physical level. Behavioral adaptations are reactions to changes in the environment. Physiological adaptations are internal process changes that help survival. Adaptable Community Center: Architecture in a Rural Context aims to respect the past, address the needs of today, and prepare for tomorrow for people, programs, and the built environment.

The small city of Alviso at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay voted to be annexed into the city of San Jose in 1968 amidst promises of basic services including a library, street paving, storm drains, fire and police protection, a library, a community center and a park. While San Jose gained the benefit of Alviso’s water treatment plant for all their residents and businesses, Alviso residents continue to struggle with slowly improved essential infrastructure and protection from flooding from the rivers that run through their neighborhood to empty into the bay. San Jose residents and workers have since thrived in Silicon Valley, the neighborhood of Alviso has seen lower property values, slower growth, er concentration of minorities, and less education. Alviso has adapted from their roots in the 1880s in boating and shipping to Silicon Valley high tech.

Over decades, various projects have helped tame the flooding rivers. Most recently in April of this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke ground on a new project to reduce flood risks from rising sea levels to protect the residents of Alviso and the greater valley. The combined local, state, and federal partnership is also restoring some of the tidal marshes from commercial salt ponds. Water, plants, and animals are already adapting – or readapting.

What is next?

A new community arts activity center in Alviso will nurture, inspire, and uplift a largely Hispanic and often neglected neighborhood in San Jose in the otherwise prosperous Silicon Valley. Through processes of supporting young and old in making, moving, and celebrating, the community will be strengthened through engagement, skill building, and wellness. To be of service to most residents and workers in the neighborhood, the Community Arts Activity Center shall also be able to adapt to a variety of user needs and the environment to be relevant now and in the future.