Portuguese architectural firms Atelier Data and Moov designed Forwarding Dallas for the Re:Vision Dallas competition, which solicited sustainable designs to construct on a city block in downtown Dallas. Forwarding Dallas took the top prize, which means it will actually be built, with construction starting in early 2011.

The design is inspired by natural hills, with different portions of the hills designated for different uses. The valleys are filled with public green spaces; vegetation, including food, will be grown on the step-filled slopes, and the peaks are topped with solar panels and wind turbines. The plan is for the community to be completely self-powered, and it even features a rainwater collection and storage facility.

But the community — which will include apartments, a gymnasium, a cafe, a daycare, and exhibition space — isn't merely sustainable; it's also a practical, cost-effective design. The construction is completely prefabricated and streamlined for rapid construction. The purpose of projects like Re:Vision Dallas is to provide cities with a model for off-the-grid architecture that's quickly realized and doesn't break the bank.

Dallas sprouts green city block downtown [Re:Vision Dallas via Inhabitat]

Local architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello hit upon this idea after considering what was about to happen to the Bay Bridge. Here is an aerial view, showing the abandoned side of the bridge on the right. This span of the bridge is still very sturdy, and could easily bear quite a bit of weight. Why dismantle and waste it when you could turn it into a unique neighborhood?

In a detailed proposal for what they call The Bay Line, the architects suggest the bridge could be a series of public parks with neighborhoods hanging beneath the bridge. This is a more suburban version of what happens in William Gibson's novel Virtual Light, where squatters take up residence on the bridge after it is partly destroyed.

Rael and San Fratello also point out that other cities have successfully built bridge neighborhoods, including Florence, Italy's Ponte Vecchio (pictured below) and the London Bridge in London. Over at BLDG BLOG, Geoff Manaugh meditates on this possible bridge community, and writes:

While, on one level, this simply side-steps the immense financial implications associated with structurally maintaining these bridges . . . it does also kick-start a conversation about what we might be able to do with the massive pieces of civic infrastructure that dot the U.S. and are currently scheduled for replacement and demolition.

Read Rael and San Fratello's full proposal for the Bay Line [PDF], via BLDG BLOG

Top image via Constant's New Babylon.

Over the past two days I've been exploring Amsterdam, a city known for its unconventional transportation network. People get around scooters, motorized bicycles, cars, and even on canal boats, using canals mostly built during the city's great expansion in the 17th century. But most of all, they ride bicycles.

In fact Amsterdam is truly a bicycle city, with every road containing bike lines – and even some with traffic lights aimed only at bicycle riders. Amsterdam has become a bike city for a couple of reasons: First, it's almost entirely flat; and second, many of the brick-paved roads and bridges are so narrow that they seem uniquely suited to bike and scooter traffic (though cars still zoom down most of them too).

Amsterdam bike riders do not fetishize their rides. Bikes are cheap, heavy, and practical, with wide, comfortable seats. Chains are surrounded by metal guards so that you can ride in pants or skirts, and you'll often see people riding one-handed, cigarettes or umbrellas held in their free hands. There are no fixies here, and no ultra-expensive made-to-orders. People hack their bikes together, adding saddlebags to the back or baby chairs and carts to the front. Every intersection rings with the sounds of bells, the bicycle equivalent of honking. And every wall, pole, and bikerack is a crazy jumble of handlebars, wheels, and seats.

Perhaps the most amazing bicycle structure in the city is the free bike parking lot outside the central train station, on the harbor in the old city. This is a touristy area, but most of the bikes belong to local commuters. From a distance, the three-story structure looks almost furry because so many small pieces of metal are sticking out all over it. Though built to hold about 1700 bikes, the place regularly packs in 7000-8000 bikes, according to a bike lot attendant I spoke to.

Outside the bike lot, a white truck with an open bed lies in wait. It belongs to a group that enforces bike parking laws, cutting chains and confiscating bikes parked in illegal spots (chained to signs, for example) and putting warning stickers on bikes that have been parked for more than a few days in the parking lot. Impounded bikes are taken to an area at the edge of the city, and are released to their owners for 10 euros.

For many of us, a bicycle parking lot like this is an unprecedented sight. We're used to multi-layer car parking lots which cost a tremendous amount per day. But a free parking lot packed with bikes? For people who dream of a bicycle-dominated future, this is like a glimpse of the future, or an alternate world.

Here's the bleak post-Judgment Day version:

It's pretty striking to see the exact same shot as portrayed in two very different movies, and it underscores how different the two films' views of the future (and of technology) really are. And just for good measure, Protohiro also posted almost the same view, as it looks today:

[Protohiro on Flickr]

Deus Ex 3 is a prequel to the other two Deus Ex games. In it, you're Adam Jensen, a private security officer working at a company that develops biomechanical augmentations for the human body, just one stepping stone towards the nanotech augmentations of the other games. Jensen witnesses an attack on his company, and has to investigate. Besides Shanghai, the game will take you to future versions of Detroit, Montreal and two other cities.

Here are some more bitchin images:

[EIDOS Forums]

Here you can see a Chicago rooftop, whose green garden looks like a luxury rather than something that's been mandated.

And then there are buildings like this one in Vancouver, which goes beyond roof greening to turn every single wall into a garden too. Imagine entire cities with skyscrapers that look like this. It's possible that one of the best ways to create energy efficient cities will be to create buildings like these, where plant life helps to regulate the structure's temperature. Rooftop and wall gardens could also become farms.

In Tokyo, where the "urban heat island" phenomenon has raised local temperatures by several degrees, city officials are mandating green roofs like this one to make buildings more efficient and bring temperatures down. Heat islands are caused when cities have so much asphalt and cement that they absorb and trap heat. Environmental planners hope that green rooftops will cool the city off.

via National Geographic

Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

This is a before picture of what the area was like that locals chose for their farm. Working with a group called Green Dreams, the locals set up a plan to clear the garbage, start a vermiculture with the worms they found under the garbage, and plant vegetables in the cleared area. Trash became compost.

They planted seeds after using PVC pipes to create perfectly round holes that they could drop the seeds in.

And three months later, they had this farm, complete with a lot of worm goo (tasty for plants) from the vermiculture to use as fertilizer.

Obviously this farm was helped along with outside help from Green Dreams, but now the people they trained are selling their services to other parts of Kibera, teaching other groups to grow their own food. Another thing that was unique about this farm was that many of the people who worked on it were ex-cons who apparently helped guard the area — so future farms in other cities might consider incorporating some element of security too.

Farming Innovations in a Slum [via AfriGadget]

Top image of Kibera via Frances Woodhams.

Here is a Gonzalez artwork called Heliopolis II:

And here is a real favela in Brazil:
Interesting how Gonzalez can use just a few photo effects and collage techniques on images of urban landscapes and turn them into shanties. Sort of like the way a small reversal in economic fortunes or climate change could quickly turn some of today's cities into shanty sprawl. All images by Dionisio Gonzalez, except the last one by Rodrigo Favera.

Dionisio Gonzalez [via Subtopia]