The Architecture of the City

The history of architecture is deeply engrained in technological developments of the time. Skyscrapers would have never reached such heights without developments in steel, for example, and facades would have never slimmed down without thin-shell concrete.

In a time that is so buzzing with technological development, we cannot help but salivate a little at the material prospects for architecture that are just on the horizon. With 2014 just beginning, we want to take a moment to see what drastic innovations may be leaking into the world of architecture in the near future.

China's next new city will be designed by US firm KPF, next to Hunan's regional capital, around a 40-hectare lake.

Adjacent to Changsha, the ancient capital city of Hunan, the design implements the sort of urban innovation that creates a sustainable and truly habitable environment.

"We can introduce integrated urban innovation," von Klemperer says, "we can combine water transport with localised energy production, cluster neighbourhood centres, advanced flood prevention and water management, and urban agriculture. Meixi is an experiment in future city planning and building. It will serve Changsha as a new CBD, but it will also serve as a paradigm for other Chinese city planners. It's a kind of live test case."

The firm seeks to achieve these goals through its dense, mixed-use urban, plan, with integration with surrounding mountains, lakes, parks and canals. Meixi Lake will eventually be home to 180,000 inhabitants, living in "villages" of 10,000 people, clustered around the canals...

In the article entitled “It’s Alive,” the design team at engineering firm ARUP envision a city building in the year 2050 that includes flexible modular pods, urban agriculture, climate-conscious facades and intelligent building systems. ARUP hopes the proposal will ultimately answer the question, "As city living takes center stage, what will we come to expect from the design and function of urban structures and buildings?".

ARUP’s futuristic skyscraper will be a “smart” building that will plug into a smart urban infrastructure, and cater to an expanding and technological society. By 2050, the global population will reach nine billion, 75% of which will live in cities. Significantly, this date will also mark a generation of adults that have lived their entire lives engaging with smart devices and materials. The design theory is that the population of 2050 is likely to be in constant flux, and therefore buildings and materials that surround this urban lifestyle must also be capable of evolution and change.

ARUP has imagined a building of the future that produces more than it consumes. Alongside the sustainable construction, the design will feature photovoltaic capability to capture and transmit energy using on-site fuel cells. In addition, energy will be harnessed from elevators or similar internal systems, along with wind turbines and algae-producing bio-fuel pods...