The City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge

Early civilizations were the first to design and engineer societies and architectural marvels that withstood time and inspired their predecessors. The History Channel challenged today's top architects and engineers to do the same in City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge.

BNIM Architects, participating with team EDAW/Praxis/BNIM/Metcalf & Eddy, was named the winner of a regional competition in Atlanta, presenting the vision of a “City of the Forest” with massive tree planting, underground streams and tunnel storage to solve water capacity issues.

As a result, the winning model for Atlanta is now a finalist in the City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge, celebrating The History Channel series “Cities of the Underworld.” This national contest challenges teams to create models of what some of the nation’s prominent urban centers could look like in 100 years.

Like many other U.S. cities, Atlanta faces particularly daunting environmental challenges, including a chronic shortage of potable water. The city maintains more than 1,900 miles of pipes to collect, combine with wastewater, treat and pipe stormwater downstream. Climate change, growth and sprawling impervious surfaces continue to degrade the outmoded, costly system. The vision by EDAW/Praxis/BNIM/Metcalf & Eddy turns Atlanta into a region repopulated with forests, which serve as the city’s lungs, filtering stormwater and purifying the air. The team envisioned the use of wetlands and sewer tunnels to capture, cleanse and store water, making the city drought-resistant.

This year the competition focused on Atlanta, San Francisco and Washington, DC. Eight design firms in each city competed regionally for a $10,000 first prize, including the chance to advance to the national level of the competition. An online competition will determine the national winner, which receives an additional $5,000 and rights to the title of National Champion.

Get out the vote!

Anyone interested can qualify to win prizes and vote for their favorite entry at the History Channel’s website.