SuperStudio: Middle Branch Futures

The scope of the ‘Green New Deal’ as we know it today is defined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey’s 2019 House Resolution 109. In addition to climate change, the scope of the resolution addresses ‘systemic injustices’ — declining life expectancy, wage stagnation, income inequality, inadequate healthcare, and racism. The issues are wide-ranging, interconnected and amplified by climate change. We therefore need solutions that address not only our environmental emergencies, but our socio-economic ones as well. The argument presented by the resolution is elegant and clear: climate change is a threat in scale which we have never seen before, and we need solutions that meet the magnitude of the problem.

The site for this studio is a significant (and real) project currently underway in Baltimore— a project to reimagine the city’s Middle Branch waterfront. This masterplan project, currently being developed by a multi-disciplinary team of landscape architects, designers, engineers and outreach specialists, embodies the scale, scope, ambition and ethos of the Green New Deal. This studio will expand the masterplan, developing a broad comprehensive 10-Year Vision for the Middle Branch and surrounding communities of South Baltimore, along with a series of small, highly targeted ‘micro-projects’ that catalyze and promote further transformation.