Potential design for the The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, Potential Energy is a manifold response to a water quality crisis, an energy crisis, and the subprime lending crisis. We see the California Delta site as a confluence of crises: a spectrum ranging from environmental to economic all contributing to the ecology of this crisis. A response to the rising tides must be synthetically situated within this confluence of crises, addressing the Great Recession holistically and accounting for the lives it has affected. Our proposal is one of a new sustainability, a systemic sustainability where the criteria lies in achieving net gains in systemic electric grid performance by synthesizing potential solutions to the housing crisis, an agricultural land management crisis, and a water quality crisis with energy storage. We have imagined the potential future lives of those most deeply affected by the Great Recession into the proposition and asked how will the next 100 years of electricity affect Architecture. Moreover, how will Architecture affect the next 100 years of electricity?

The project was part of a traveling exhibition, on view at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam in 2009.