For over a decade, WebUrbanist has featured a wide range of innovative and inspiring urban art and design projects from around the world. The website has attracted more than 500,000 subscribers and been visited over 100,000,000 times since it was launched in 2007. And while WU will remain online, we are not currently planning to publish new pieces going forward. We greatly appreciate your readership and hope you will continue to explore the site and enjoy the thousands of articles in its archives.

The main page of WebUrbanist features a curated series of resource-rich articles covering some of the site’s most popular and timeless themes — these are intended to be a jumping-off point for diving deeper into topics of interest. Or seek out specific subjects like adaptive reuse, vertical farming, cargo container architecture and space-saving design using the search box.

Kurt Kohlstedt, the founder of WebUrbanist, is currently focused on his work as a writer, editor and digital director at 99% Invisible, a radio show and website about design. With over 500,000,000 downloads to date, 99pi is one of the most popular podcasts in the world. These media projects have a lot in common, so fans of WU are encouraged to check out more articles on 99pi and subscribe to the show.

Kurt was a big fan of 99pi long before joining the show in 2015 and has since become a regular voice on the podcast. He has gone on tour with the show, given talks and participated in panels on subjects ranging from how the invention of Kindergarten fundamentally shaped Modern art and design to the improbable rise of tree-covered skyscrapers.

In 2020, currently co-authored a National Bestselling book with 99pi host Roman Mars: The 99% Invisible City:A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design. You can also follow Kurt for semi-regular tweets about design, cities, urbanism and synanthropes.  From the start, WebUrbanist was about making urban architecture, art and design more accessible and engaging to all kinds of people. As you continue to explore the world around you: stay curious, fellow urbanists.

About WebUrbanist

Previously an ongoing publication, WebUrbanist is now a passive archive made up of over 5,000 articles written across 30 categories between 2007 and 2020. The site covered urban architecture, art, design, exploring built environments around the world and reaching a total audience of over 100,000,000 visitors.

Creator and Contributors:

Kurt Kohlstedt founded WebUrbanist before launching a series of other design-centric publications including Dornob, Gajitz and WebEcoist — these days, he is focused on his work at 99% Invisible, a popular podcast and website about design. He also co-authored The 99% Invisible City with 99pi host Roman Mars.

Contributing authors included SA Rogers, Delana Barnes, Steve Levenstein and others over the years. The gifted designer/developer duo of Duck Brigade crafted the current version of this website as well as the snazzy logo.  Mike Waggoner has tenaciously kept the site up and running through good times and bad.

Press and Publicity:

Over the years, WebUrbanist and Kurt Kohlstedt have been featured on a number of other media outlets and popular blogs including The Guardian, The BBC, CNN, NPR, TIME, ArchDaily, Architizer, Atlas Obscura, BoingBoing, BuzzFeed, Citylab, Curbed, Streetsblog, FOX, Gawker, Gizmodo, Martha Stewart Living, Mental Floss, MSNBC, Neatorama, WebWare and Wired Magazine.

Through WU, Kurt became known for his coverage of abandoned places, uncanny graffiti, urban camouflage, transforming furniture, container architecture, modular housing, vertical farming, cycling infrastructure, big-box reuse, street markings, planning history, and civic design commentary. This in turn set the stage for him to write a National and New York Times Best Seller in 2020.

In Newark, New Jersey, a large and deceptively nondescript building is redefining the Garden State, producing millions of pounds of food per year just outside of Manhattan. This 70,000 square foot facility has the equivalent yield of over 5 million square feet of traditional farmland. Inside, a year-round, closed-loop aeroponics system employs no pesticides and requires 95% less water than field farming. This branch of AeroFarms is not alone — it’s part of a food production revolution with projects ranging from at-home and in-store micro-farms to massive facilities set up in old factories and warehouses around the world.

Technically, vertical farming can be done outside, too, by stacking planters in natural sunlight, but indoor vertical farms offer a range of advantages. Inside, there are no seasons and specialized LED lights make it possible to grow plants continuously and cycle through various crops more easily. The controlled environment and standardization of these systems also makes automation easier. In Japan, approaches have gone predictably high-tech, with endeavors like the Vegetable Factory, which is operated entirely by robots.

Spatial containment makes recycling more efficient, mitigates spoilage and reduces the risk of diseases and pests spreading beyond a specific facility. Transportation costs and energy requirements are also reduced for farms that move into old factories and warehouses right in and around cities, putting them closer to consumers. Aeroponics in general also require less material input — mainly mist and air with minimal water and soil — leading to a lighter footprint.

What started in large and independent facilities has begun to spread into mainstream grocery stores and supermarkets, too. A few years back, Target started testing direct retail micro-farms, beginning with leafy greens before moving to tomatoes, peppers and more. Since these kinds of retail spaces are climate-controlled already for the sake of both shoppers and products, less added energy is required to maintain ideal conditions.

In Berlin, a company called INFARM recently partnered with local shops to provide similar in-store services, cutting down on farm-to-table distance right in the heart of a major European metropolis. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, vertical creepers, rice paddies and broccoli fields were integrated into the design of an otherwise Modern-looking office building, brightening up the place while also providing food for the employee cafeteria.

Taking vertical integration a step further, projects like the ReGen Villages aim to incorporate stacked farms directly into residential communities. It may sound impractical or even Utopian, but at its root the idea is relatively traditional: backyard gardens and community gardening are nothing new. Coupled with walkability and density, these kinds of green-centric towns have a lot in common with New Urbanist ideas that go back decades.

Still, it is generally wise to maintain a healthy skepticism when it comes to fresh green architectural trends and technologies and eye-catching renderings. Skyscrapers covered in greenery (or treescrapers), for instance, have proven to be popular but also problematic in practice (catchy conceptual earthscrapers, groundscrapers and sidescrapers, too, for that matter). Sometimes, more practical organic solutions are hiding in plain sight. Take wood, for instance, a historically popular green building material now finding new forms and reaching new heights in tall buildings around the world. Newer is not always better.

Some extreme vertical farming ideas may indeed prove to be far-fetched and unsustainable, but market movements suggest there is a future in these kinds of facilities and approaches. Investors are putting their money where people’s mouths are, buying up disused urban real estate and developing new indoor farming technologies. Already, vertical farming is a $2,000,000,000 industry and experts project it will grow as much as 30% per year over the next decade.

Vertical farms are of course not a complete solution to ongoing threats like climate change and mounting global food crises, but they do show promise — these endeavors are slowly breaking down urban and rural barriers, reconnecting cities with the food sources that sustain them and shortening that critical distance from farm to table.

Each year, eVolo Magazine solicits visionary proposals for futuristic skyscrapers from architects around the world. Focusing on sustainability, innovation and technological advancements, the annual competition produces ideas that may not be ready to build in the immediate future, but can inspire us all to think bigger when we imagine possible solutions to common problems like overpopulation, pollution and wildlife habitat loss. The 2019 eVolo Skyscraper Competition winners and honorable mentions include everything from hyperloop transit networks in the sky to urban structures that efficiently dispose of our trash.

Methanescraper (First Place)

Taking first place is Methanescraper by Serbian designer Marko Dragicevic, a skyscraper envisioned for Belgrade that responds to problems of overpopulation, mass urbanization and pollution. Noting that our current means of “disposing” of waste is untenable and that the problem will continue to compound in the future, the proposal “changes the model of a typical landfill into a raw vertical infrastructure.”

“The towers are module-based, and every tower is consisted of waste capsules that are attached to the concrete core. Firstly, city waste is being delivered to sorting facility, where it is categorized by type (glass, plastic, organic matter, paper, wood, metal), after which it is sent to temporary landfill. The recyclable waste is taken to recycling facility, and organic matter, parts of wood and paper materials are gathered and disposed into modular waste capsules. These capsules are attached to the tower core by cranes. Every capsule is equipped with inhaler and pipeline that connects to the methane tank, and when organic matter rots, methane produced by the process is drawn from each capsule and later transformed into energy. When the matter in a capsule decomposes completely, the capsule can be taken out, cleaned and refilled.”

Airscraper (Second Place)

How can we reduce deadly levels of air pollution in increasingly congested cities? “Airscraper” by Polish designers Klaudia Golaszewska and Marek Grodzicki envision a skyscraper that wraps around a chimney structure like a sleeve. The interior tube sucks polluted air from the surrounding area and sends it through a complex filtration system consisting of an air intake module, solar gain module and green garden module to move and clean the air before sending it back out to the city.

“Many megacities have emerged across China in the recent decades. Beijing’s population will increase by 30% in the next 15 years. This means that some of Beijing’s densest districts such as Chaoyang will reach a population of 2250 inhabitants per km2. In order to create compact cities, reduce car emissions and improve health conditions, Mega cities will have to build higher towers. Our idea is to facilitate this forecasted trend by introducing a new super structure that fits the needs of a megacity by providing healthy living quarters, while helping to alleviate the air pollution. The Airscraper can house 7500 people, which is equivalent to 3 km2 of residential urban Sprawl. It also includes recreational, educational, commercial, and cultural facilities. The tower stands as a healthy vertical city.”

Creature Ark: Biosphere Skyscraper (Third Place)

Decrying the current sense of apathy over the state of our planet, U.K.-based designers Zijian Wan, Xioazhi Qi and Yueya Liu say we have to reevaluate how human activity contributes to habitat degradation and do something about it. “Creature Ark: Biosphere Skyscraper” is a vertical nature reserve and research station internally divided into five levels representing climates on Earth, each populated with endangered animals.

“The proposed skyscraper is willing to recall the close relationship between human beings and their mother nature by the form of architecture. Every component in the ecosystem could hardly behave or survive as an individual literally, hence all living creature should appropriate the gifts from nature and they should be treated and valued equally. In modern society, the form of a skyscraper, carrying multiple functions, is expected to be one of the carries that making a better future.”

Vertical Sustainable City (Honorable Mention)

Urban environments present certain constraints, most crucially in terms of available space, that must be overcome by architects as cities continue to evolve. In the near future, we may no longer have a choice but to radically transform our ideas about what urban architecture should look like in the face of climate crisis. The U.S.-based BKV Group presents “Vertical Sustainable City,” a supertall tower with a small footprint, as an example of what could be to come as we prioritize limiting urban sprawl and preserving natural environments for forests and wildlife. It contains commercial areas on the ground floor “framed within a vertical mall concept,” as well as a food production area, a vertical farm and housing.

“Having access to the vertical farm are residences in the upper half of the tower that also feature access to drone landing pads. There, electric and solar-powered drones can dock at or near the elevated housing units – taking traffic off the congested street-level, and into the air. Rising to the very top of the tower is the Office Area, arranged around wind turbines generating energy, reducing the tower’s carbon footprint, and creating water collection systems for the farming, living, and working programs. En masse, the Vertical Sustainable City creates a holistic live/work/play environment for urbanites, effectively responding to the context and elements impacting modern-day cities.”

Horizontal City of No Nation (Honorable Mention)

The world is witnessing the highest level of displacement on record. As war and climate change drives millions of people from their home nations, the urgent need to house refugees in settlements that maintain normal societal functions has never been greater. Zichen Gong, Yong Chen, Tianrong Wu, Yingzhi He and Congying He of China offer “Horizontal City of No Nation” as a means of providing refugees with shelter, security and development opportunities along international borders.

“The core part of this proposal is how to conserve their original environment and provide adequate space. Based on the narrow buffer zone, the skyscraper introduced here should not be simple stack of broken layers, but a transformation from a horizontal lifestyle to a vertical one. In this skyscraper, people can follow their previous habitats in stable societies and get adequate education, training and jobs. On the other hand, neighbouring countries will not bear too much of population influx when they provide.”

“By presenting the unusual lifestyle, we try to seek a new direction in dilemmas. Living in a world where we can not choose where we are born, we would still have a place to go. We don’t have to consider which side we’re going to be on, we can have a new one, retaining rights, identities and languages. We envision that some people will choose to return to their homeland, and they will be able to use the relevant skills learned during this period to rebuild their homes. Moreover, where will this skyscraper go after the war? Because of its normal development during the war, it may become a new and complete society.”

Connection One: Skyscrapers Network (Honorable Mention)

What if we could free up an enormous amount of space on the ground by moving transportation up into the sky in a controlled way? “Connection One: Skyscrapers Network” by Thomas Gössler of Austria addresses both congestion and pollution with a reimagining of modern transportation systems using new technologies like hyperloop. Noting that transportation could take place either below or above street level, the designer proposes towers that act as central transportation hubs while also offering space for apartments, shopping centers, offices, schools and recreational facilities.

“The top floor is part of the hyperloop infrastructure. How does hyperloop work? The pods in the pipes move forwards, accelerating until they reach a speed where they lift up, and are guided by magnets. Hyperloop One says its 670mph system will be “automated by the most advanced systems in the world, allowing a safe and efficient journey that is never delayed or overbooked.” Hyperloop or conventional trains are usually bound to the ground. However, this presents big challenges, especially in mountainous countries and densely populated areas. Therefore, the network is floating in the sky by gas-filled pillows referencing an airship. This can be achieved sustainably by using the methane produced by farm cows or even pump greenhouse gases from the atmosphere into the loop. Approximately 1000m³ of gas are needed in order to lift a metric-ton, so the construction has to be very lightweight.”

Blank, windowless exterior walls that get plenty of sun exposure could become vertical farms with the addition of recycled modular scaffolding. A project called GreenBelly aims to make use of these wasted urban spaces to provide fresh food to the surrounding neighborhood with a system that’s easy to transport, install and remove, and it doesn’t even require hookups to utilities. A six-level GreenBelly system made of reclaimed scaffolding and wooden pallets taking up just 35 square meters of land can produce over 14,000 pounds (6400kg) of vegetables per year.

The basic module contains a soil bed, two aeroponic towers and a hydroponic wall, capable of growing hundreds of plants at a time. Multiple modules fit together like Legos, stacking vertically to create multi-tiered open-air structures that harvest rainwater and run on solar energy. The bottom unit contains a farm stand for selling the produce to local residents, and the top level contains beehives to help pollinate the plants and produce honey. Producing and selling food in the same urban location allows the stand to sell fresh produce at fixed, affordable prices.

Created by AVL Studio, a design boutique specializing in sustainable architecture, the GreenBelly system could be run as an educational project by a school, an assistance program for homeless people or an addition to an existing restaurant or market, or its individual modules could be rented out to locals in a manner similar to community gardens. How it’s managed would likely depend on who owns the land it’s built on. The architects estimate the cost of a 20-module unit at about 30,000 euros (roughly $35,000 USD), which could be recouped after three years of operation.

It’s an interesting proposition for the many blind building facades found in an average city, especially in areas where fresh produce is harder to come by. AVL Studio envisions the GreenBelly system being especially valuable in disadvantaged neighborhoods. They’re currently raising money on Kickstarter to build more prototypes at various scales, which could be exported in containers to places that need them most, like Palestine.