A London architect has is working to sketch a new city each day, mining his imagination and experience for fresh ideas for a full year, a practice inspired in part by the failures of modern urban planning.

Peter Barber is sharing the results of his work online, driven by an architectural theorist.”The idea arose from Lewis Mumford’s assertion that modernism has ‘failed to produce even a rough draft for a decent neighbourhood’, and from a pub remark made by my friend and colleague Ben Stringer, who said that you ought to be able to design a city in 10 minutes” — or at least: the idea for one.

These are not meant to be fully polished master plans, but rather an exploration of the shape of cities through quick sketches. They range in scale and region as well, from towns in Spanish ravines to fisherman islands and farming cooperatives in the United Kingdom. Among others, he has imagined a city to wrap the existing city of London, wondering what that might look like as well as how it would function and relate to the historical metropolitan heart of England.

Embedded in this experiment, though, is also a call to action for architects and planners: sketch, think and design, even if it’s speculative, just to keep ideas flowing. “I’m an inveterate sketcher. The project structures that a bit,” says Barber. “In the course of my day it’s a little 10 minute mental workout, kind of light relief too, and a chance to think beyond the here and now. I wonder if the project will remind people about the joy of jotting down a thought in a quick sketch, the sketch book as a place to escape to, a place to be playful, dreamy, speculative, idealistic even.”

Of course, he also hopes some good ideas will come out of the exercise. “We need to think deeply about our priorities and how those might be reflected in the production and arrangement of space and how we want our cities, towns, villages to be designed,” he explains In designing, he is also researching, and thinking about what’s already built. “To a significant extent the layout of our cities, and London is a very good example, are products of neo-liberal economics, the commodification of housing and the arbitrary flow of global capital. In London, which is surely one of the richest cities the world has ever known, this is leading to misery and a segregated city, with 170,000 homeless people and 20,000 empty investment flats, while social housing bequeathed to us by a more idealistic post-war generation is bulldozed.” Of course, one always has to be careful, too: architects are notorious for thinking about city plans first in terms of buildings, and only later in terms of practical considerations.

An expansive master-planned complex to facilitate urban agriculture and private/public collaboration, The Agro Food Park is Denmark’s version of “Silicon Valley” for food research and development. From experimental greenhouses to vertical farm prototypes, the park is bringing together academics and businesses to work on creating a sustainable future via global food security.

Co-designed by an array of architecture, engineering, technology and agriculture firms, the food park was first opened in 2009 and already hosts nearly 100 companies in 44,000 square meters of space. The newly-expanded plan, however, will grow the park by 280,000 square meters over the coming decades, requiring careful strategic planning reflecting environmental considerations.

The long-term master plan features a communal Lawn showcasing experimental developments, a main-street Strip hosting various gathers and activities, and a series of Plazas to facilitate interactions between companies and researchers. The huge complex is also designed to recycle its own waste efficiently and minimize its footprint, a “practice what you preach” approach to ecological urban agriculture.

“Innovation occurs best when knowledge is concentrated in clusters and cross-pollinate. By linking food production to urban life, we have tried to create an environment where people, knowledge and ideas meet. The dream is to create the framework for agriculture’s answer to Silicon Valley.”

Though the plan is complex, the mission of the place is simple: to feed the world in a healthy way. The expressions of that mission, however, vary greatly, from initiatives to use clean energy and create biodiversity to facilitating healthy air and clean water. In short: it is not just about good food, but how best to produce edible goods in a sustainable way.

“Embracing Agro-Urban Ecosystem Design, the AFP treats urban and agricultural development together as a unified, productive and restorative ecosystem,” said the project architects.

“By integrating the carbon cycle and other ecological processes into large scale urban systems and their surroundings – buildings and energy flows, water cycles and wastewater treatment, land use and food production – the AFP creates economic value within the urban and agricultural infrastructure.”

Creating a one-of-a-kind opportunity for urban designers and aspiring planners, Black Rock City is soliciting fresh layouts from anyone who wishes to contribute. Winners selected by the BRC Ministry of Urban Planning will be featured in an upcoming publication but will also influence the future shape of this surreal metropolis.

As the home of the Burning Man Festival, BRC is unique not only due to its intermittent existence, rising from the desert for just one week every year, but also because of its density and size, with 75,000+ annual residents making their home in less than 2 square miles.

The fact that the place is rebuilt anew with each iteration means lessons learned one year can be applied the next, while the absolutely flat desert landscape makes for effectively endless possible layouts. Likewise, the architecture that populates the place is highly varied and ever-evolving, reflecting the radical changes in temperature from day to night and the ever-present threat of rain and dust storms.

While critics and ‘citizens’ alike have strong feelings and differing views about other aspects of the gathering, once attendees have arrived they effectively become residents of a grand urban experiment. Reliant on streets and other public infrastructure, everyone fills into the grid, from individual campsites (often on the fringes) to large theme camps (arrayed primarily around a central circular Esplanade) and core communal functions (generally near the entrance).

These designs, past through present, reflect the need for clear navigation within the city as well as the desire to foster density and (through that) community interactions, all while maintaining critical services at key places or appropriate intervals.

While leeway is given for creative variation, submitters to the contest are similarly encouraged to reinforce density and interactivity, through fractal patterns or other applicable configurations and shapes. Far-fetched, implausible or even physically impossible entries will still be considered, however, even if they cannot be incorporated in a near-future plan.

The shape of the city has changed significantly over time, but certain elements like the centrality of The Man have remained largely the same. Tall relative to its surroundings and aligned with axes of the city, it serves to help orient people (particularly at night) while also providing a central locus around which activity revolves. While it was initially arrayed closely around it, the city pushed back from The Man over the years, creating a broken circle with views to and beyond this center figure.

As the city grew in size, its location also shifted, pushing it deeper into the wide-open desert. However, since 1999, major changes have been fewer and farther between – a fact that may change with the right submission to this competition.

More on the origins of the competition: “We founded the Black Rock City Ministry of Urban Planning with the goal of enabling people to share and discuss ideas for the spatial and geometric possibilities for Black Rock City and regional events, and to give architects and urban designers a platform to participate more directly in this process. Design competitions such as this are a familiar format in these trades, and as such, are an efficient way to get lots of ideas on the table for consideration.”

Types of and evaluation criteria for submissions: “(1) Individual design elements : boulevards, roundabouts, street lights, all of the things that are part of a cityscape that can be incorporated into larger scale plans. Have an idea for a park, or a winding boulevard? Submit this as a design element. (2) Conforming city plans : these are large scale city plans that make adaptations to the existing time + named street coordinate system without altering the fundamental character of the plan. The objective with this type of plan is to make aesthetic or practical improvements to what’s already in place, for example by adding pedestrian boulevards (think Las Ramblas in Barcelona). (3) Non-conforming city plans : here we explore BRC, or a regional event city, as an imagined or science fictional space, and invite people to submit radically new configurations for the city.” (Images via Burning Man, Duncan Rawlinson and Jonathan LaLiberty).

Scheduled to land like an otherworldly spacecraft in Tokyo, the curvaceous, controversial but competition-winning National Stadium designed for the 2020 Olympics by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) will be restarted from scratch.

The structure has been criticized for everything from its mounting construction costs to its design that arguably clashes with the surrounding historic portions of the city and violates local height limits. After years of growing issues and complaints, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finally announced a change of course: “We have decided to go back to the start on the Tokyo Olympics-Paralympics stadium plan, and start over from zero. I have been listening to the voices of the people for about a month now, thinking about the possibility of a review.”

Intended to be a sports center to last a century, the price tag has repeatedly climbed beyond original estimates, recently reaching a reported $2,000,000,000, in part due to expensive materials but also the complex shape. A number of Japanese architects also weighed in, signing a petition to scrap the project – Hadid, meanwhile, as a London-based Iraqi architect, has contended that their criticism is based on the selection of a designer from outside of the country.

Whether the 80,000-seat stadium will now be designed by another firm or simply restarted by Zaha Hadid is unclear as yet, but 7 years after she won the competition for this concept one might hope they will give her another chance to cut costs or come up with an alternative. For now, her firm has officially defended the direction they took, claiming the icon is worth the cost and comparable to other world-class sporting arenas in major cities around the globe and that local labor costs are part of the problem: “We have used our experience on major sports and cultural projects, including the hugely successful London 2012 Games and legacy, to design a stadium that can be built cost-effectively and still deliver the flexible and robust National Stadium that the Japan Sports Council requires.” Perhaps the final design solution will more closely mimic the famously futuristic 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympic Games as predicted and portrayed in the famous 1988 anime Akira.

Slated to be constructed in just 7 years and cost $300 billion (more than the GDP of Egypt), this ambitious design for a brand new capital city of 5 million people is unprecedented – if completed, it will be a record-setting endeavor. And it is not just a conceptual vision, or at least not entirely- the site has been selected and a 100-square-kilometer test section has already been approved by the Egyptian government.

The new capital-replacing city is described by its proponents as “the catalyst for an Egyptian renaissance” and “a momentous endeavour to build national spirit, foster consensus and provide for the country’s sustainable long-term growth.” Inspired in part by Silicon Valley, buzzwords about in the promotional materials related to the project, tentatively titled “The Capital.” It is intended to be a “smart city” and “hub of innovation” to carry its country into the future of technology and sustainability.

Transportation is to be a big component of the design, both within and beyond the city – it is meant to become both a hub as well as a walkable metropolis. Lessons are being taken from extant clogged and congested urban centers, particularly Cairo. However, it is not clear through the gloss and glamour just how these innovations will manifest themselves – there are some statistics, though, that are at least superficially impressive.

Environmental friendliness is also high on the list, with plans to sustainable local food, use eco-friendly modes of power generation (wind and solar) and, of course, deal with waste and recycling in a green and efficient manner, avoiding a repeat of Cairo’s infamous “Garbage City.”

Some might question whether the futuristic renderings are really representative of what is planned or if they are simply designed to impress. Critics note that the scheme seems too good to be true, and may be intentionally positioned as a Utopian project in order to draw outside investors. Building a new city from the ground up may result in that space being more efficient, but it leaves one wondering what the country has planned for its former capital. Perhaps there is room for generosity in expectations, however – lessons learned and developers deployed in this massive construction project could be turned around afterward and reassigned to fix existing cities.