CITY OF THE FUTURE: A Design and Engineering Challenge

In January, The History Channel, with sponsors Infiniti and IBM, will challenge architects and designers nationwide to compete in City of the Future competitions in Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Atlanta.

8 teams in each city will have just one week to envision what their city might look like in 100 years, before presenting their 3-D model to a panel of five esteemed judges. The winner in each city will win a $10,000 Grand Prize and go head-to-head in an online vote where you will have the opportunity to choose the National Champion!

Washington D.C. Teams

January 15th 9AM to 5PM at Union Station

Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
is a highly collaborative international practice of 180 professionals in New York and Washington, DC, with recognized expertise in diverse areas of architecture, historic preservation, urban design and planning. Established in 1968, the firm’s work has been honored with numerous awards for design and planning, including three Presidential Design Awards and the national AIA Firm Award.

Christian Zapatka Architect LLC
is a ten person practice committed to enhancing the architectural landscape of Washington, DC. With a specialty in modernizing and expanding historic structures as well as introducing new building form to the city, the firm’s work has been recognized through publications, exhibits and awards.

C U P
is a collaborative team of academics and professionals, which includes Laurel McSherry, Helene Renard, Galia Solomonoff and Terry Surjan with expertise in architecture, landscape and linguistics. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia and Columbia University, New York, New York are the institutions where the C U P group teaches and design research is folded into practice. Past projects include: “Flight 93 National Memorial”, “Envisioning Gateway”, “Sun City Urbanism” and “Aarhus Harbor Masterplan”.

GROW:DC
is a design collaborative and urban think tank based in Charlottesville, Virginia. The team is led by Jason Johnson and Nataly Gattegno (Future Cities Lab LLC), Chris Fannin and Julie Bargmann (D.I.R.T. Studio), and William Morrish.

istudio/envision
Matt Arnn and Rick Harlan Schneider of istudio have engaged communities with visionary civic, educational, commercial, and residential architecture and planning since the early 1990’s. Envision Design is an award-winning Washington DC-based design firm dedicated to environmental responsibility in design and practice.

Maryland Urban Research Studio
is a multi-disciplinary cohort of faculty and students from the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, & Preservation whose creative work and research investigates the city as physical, intellectual, and cultural construct. Individual team members with expertise in architecture, urban planning, preservation, and anthropology bring to bear their experience with several award winning projects to the challenges facing the cities in which they live, work, and play.

OBRA Architects
was established in New York in 2000 by Pablo Castro and Jennifer Lee. Their work has received numerous awards and has been published and exhibited widely in the US and abroad, with current projects including private residences in New York and Costa Rica, an apartment hotel in Buenos Aires, and most recently a competition proposal for the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, Poland. Guido Zuliani is an architect, author, and educator based in New York and Venice, Italy. The team includes the international engineering consultancy of Werner Sobek which operates on a worldwide scale with offices in Germany, the US, Russia and the Middle East.

Sorg and Associates Architects
located in Washington, DC, was established by Suman Sorg in 1986 and has grown to become one of the largest woman-owned architecture firms in the country. The firms focus is on modern architecture in urban settings. Our award-winning projects range from overseas embassy designs to multifamily housing to local civic buildings.

San Fransisco Teams

January 20th 10AM to 6PM at Ferry Building

Anderson Anderson Architecture
is a respected award-winning design firm founded in 1984 by partners Mark Anderson and Peter Anderson. With strong experience in Multi-Family, Residential, Institutional, Commercial and Prefabricated building systems, the firm collaborates with manufacturers and construction professionals to provide clients with design excellence and high-quality building execution in the U.S. and abroad.

Fougeron Architecture
is a nationally recognized design firm whose work exhibits a strong commitment to clarity of thought, design integrity and quality of architectural detail. The firm’s decidedly modernist attitude is the result of founder Anne Fougeron’s vision to create a practice dedicated to finding the perfect alignment between architectural idea and built form.

Gelfand Partners Architects (GP)
founded in 1997, is a San Francisco design office. Using a rigorous and collaborative process, GP creates sustainable, functional and inspiring projects that serve the public interest.

Hargreaves Associates
is a landscape architecture and planning firm with offices in San Francisco, New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London. The firms work since 1983 has been awarded, published, and exhibited extensively and includes the Sydney 2000 Olympics, waterfront parks in cities such as Louisville, Chattanooga, San Francisco and Singapore and parks and plazas in urban centers including Houston, San Jose, Baton Rouge and Hong Kong.

IF architecture
IF may stand for “imagining the future.” IF architecture is a loose collaboration of educators, architects, engineers, writers and naturalists who speculate on the future reciprocities between cities and wilderness, and on the aesthetic and ecological implications of these shifting relationships.

IwamotoScott Architecture
is a San Francisco based practice formed by Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott. ISARs work centers on amplifying the perceptual performance of architecture through strong environmental and site relationships, synthetic form, and innovative use of material. As a practice committed to pursuing architecture as a form of applied design research, ISAR engages in projects at multiple scales and in a variety of contexts including full-scale fabrications, museum installations and exhibitions, theoretical proposals, competitions and commissioned design projects.

Kuth Ranieri Architects
is a progressive architecture and urban design firm at the forefront of green building practices. Byron Kuth AIA and Elizabeth Ranieri AIA established KUTH/RANIERI Architects in 1990; the firm has earned a national reputation for innovative commercial, institutional, residential and urban design projects that integrate current cultural discourse with contemporary issues of design, technology and environmental awareness.

Pfau Architecture
is an 18 person San Francisco based design firm whose work is a continuous exploration into the assembly and experience of architecture. Recent and current projects include; the new SPUR Urban Center, Lick Wilmerding High School, the Grand Canyon Village Interperative Center and the San Francisco Friends School.

Atlanta Teams

January 29th 10AM to 6PM at Underground Atlanta

EDAW
As multi-disciplinary firms practicing in all areas of architectural and land based problem solving, EDAW, BNIM, Praxis 3 and Metcalf & Eddy concentrate on addressing the complex issues of the contemporary city and the creation of public space in an information-based society. Our approach to design focuses on integrating the built and natural world to provide innovative and wholly sustainable solutions.

Georgia Tech
is an interdisciplinary team led by Ellen Dunham-Jones principally composed of faculty and students in the College of Architecture. With extensive experience engaging Atlanta through speculative academic design projects, sponsored research and scholarship, the team’s recent activities include the Solar Decathlon and Incremental Urbanism as well as forthcoming books on Retrofitting Suburbs, Megaregions, and Mobility.

HOK
creates innovative planning, design and delivery solutions for buildings, communities and cities throughout the world. Our global network of specialists connects people and places in a way that is thoughtful, responsible and inspirational.

HOLLWICHKUSHNER (HWKN)
is an architecture and concept design firm established by Matthias Hollwich and Marc Kushner. Our work exists at the intersection of client, user, brand and nature. Whether in teaching or in practice, in all our projects, we strive to inspire and create innovative and responsible man-made environments.

NOX
is the architecture and art studio in Rotterdam of internationally acclaimed innovator, Lars Spuybroek. Since the early nineties he has been researching the relationship between art, architecture and computing and received international recognition after building the Water Pavilion (HtwoOexpo) in 1997, the first building in the world fully incorporating new media. Lars is a tenured Professor and the Ventulett Distinguished Chair of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Perkins and Will
is recognized internationally for design achievements in the arenas of corporate, commercial, civic, healthcare, higher education, K-12 education, and science and technology. Through our commitment to sustainable design, we achieve our clients’ vision by creating ideas and buildings that honor the broader goals of society.

plexus/CDM
is an Atlanta based design studio organized to explore the manifold relationships between culture and design through the mediums of architecture, interior design, graphic design and installations. We are interested in resisting the increasing cultural irrelevance of architecture and design by creating spaces that stimulate the imagination, inspiring each observer to become an active participant in the construction of experience.

Team Dewmac
, located in New York City, is a team of four women - Denise Pieratos, Radhi Majmadur, Owiso Makuku, and Sarah Williams  who have collectively received numerous awards in architecture, planning, and engineering. Team Dewmac is associated with Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners, a creative design engineering firm established in 1985 with main offices in New York and London.

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