Chicago - Sustainable City of The Future?
I recently learned (from a brief article on the Illinois Institute of Technology site) about the History Channel’s “The City of the Future” challenge.
Of course the IIT site was understandably biased in it’s coverage of the competition, focusing solely on the Chicago project. It is important to note however that the Windy City is one of three finalists (New York and LA being the other two).
Nevertheless, the ideas coming from the Chicago team sound absolutely fascinating! It was a mention of the term “living machine” that really caught my attention right away.
As you may recall from my John Todd post, living machines (also referred to as ‘eco-machines’) are aquatic biological systems utilizing diverse collections of flora and fauna to process “waste” water.
The name given to the Chicago project (which was put together by a design firm called UrbanLab) is “Growing Water” and the concept is very cool indeed (be sure to follow the link and check it out).
Here is a blurb from the IIT article:
The premise of UrbanLab’s design is Growing Water. In 2106, water will be the world’s most valuable resource: the new oil. UrbanLab’s project envisions Chicago evolving into a model city for “growing water” by creating a series of Eco-Boulevards spread throughout the city. The Eco-Boulevards will function as a giant “Living Machine” which will treat 100% of Chicago’s wastewater and stormwater naturally, using micro-organisms, small invertebrates (such as snails), fish and plants. Treated water will be harvested and/or returned to the Great Lakes Basin. Ultimately, the Eco-Boulevards will create a closed water loop within Chicago.
I only briefly looked at the New York and LA projects, but even based only on my brief assessment I’m pretty confident that the Chicago team would get my vote (speaking of which, I’m pretty sure they are still accepting votes for the competition if you are interested).
Sadly, the purpose of this design challenge was to create a vision for cities 100 years from now. Hopefully we’ll see some of these ideas implemented on a large scale long before then.
Technorati Tags: living machine, eco machine, wastewater, sewage, rainwater, sewer, chicago, urbanlab, history channel, growing water, green design, green construction
Written by Bentley on January 9th, 2007 with
2 comments.
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Bentley
#1. January 9th, 2007, at 10:12 PM.
I’m with you … from what’s available at the web sites, UrbanLab’s thought process for Chicago appears to be miles ahead of the other two entries. (And the very well done, detailed presentation sure doesn’t hurt!)
On the other hand, to be fair, they didn’t have to take into account the impact of forecasted sea rise that N.Y. (and L.A.?) had to contend with … which won’t be pretty if it happens.
Beyond the competition … the most significant aspect of the Chicago model is that, IMHO, it is relevant and feasible (with only a bit of tweaking for site variables) for so many other cities. Toronto comes to mind.
Mega-Kudos to UrbanLab! And thanks for bringing it to our attention.