Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Growning Water in Chicago

A fellow architect sent this article to me via email and I thought it was too cool of a concept to not pass on.  It is right in line with my electrified roads for electric cars, think bumper cars with the grid coming from solar panels and wind turbines along said road and attached to any bridges over said road. I think these two plans would work beautifully together... 

Anyway, this idea from Urban Labs won a big award in 2006 and has been further recognized by the AIA in 2009 with the $100,000 Latrobe Prize. Their concept is simple, build on Chicago's vast green spaces to create green boulevards to the Lake that will naturally clean used water and return it to the lake.  They are also calling for the reversal of the Chicago River (which unfortunately would need a MAJOR clean-up first) and the reuse of the current deep tunnels that collect run-off and divert it to the Mississippi basin as new 'L' lines for the CTA since these tunnels would no longer be required.  This is an idea that could be a great model for many other Cities, so all I have to ask as a Chicagoan is: Mayor Daley, when do we start? 

The Urban Lab website with more details: http://www.urbanlab.com/h2o/

No comments:

Post a Comment