“It’s an opportunity to learn and work across disciplines towards shared outcomes, which is a core value of our practice at Sasaki,” says Melissa Isidor, Marketing Coordinator and former intern. The charrette culminates with a juried review in front of the entire office; the reviewers are Sasaki principals and the charrette’s clients.

This year, the interns worked with the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), an organization focused on creating equitable futures within the Mystic River Watershed, to explore resilience strategies for the watershed. In the first few days of the charrette, the group went on a site visit up the Mystic River with their clients from MyRWA. The site visit gave the team of interns and their mentors,  Sasaki designers and planners, an understanding of the scale at which they were working.

During the charrette, the cohort was guided by four questions about the watershed community, posed by their client, MyRWA:

“Where did we come from?”

“Who are we today?”

“How will climate change impact our future?”

“What strategies can we utilize to become more resilient?”

For the next two weeks, the intern group of 13 answered these questions through historical, site, and precedent analysis.

In mid-June, they presented their work, Make Way for Water, to a jury consisting of members of the client team from MyRWA and Sasaki principals.

After their presentation, Julie Worrmser, Deputy Director of MyRWA, asked the interns to present their project to the Resilient Mystic Collaborative, a coalition of representatives from the municipalities within the watershed.

Excited and empowered by their work on the charrette, the members of the cohort are now in their respective disciplines where they will be working alongside Sasaki designers and planners on a wide array of projects.

Meet Sasaki’s 2019 Summer Intern cohort below!