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.

If you have ever opened a side door to see the lines of a parking space, or asked a passenger to get out and guide you in, you may be wondering where this simple solution has been for all your years of urban driving.

In some cases, like parallel street parking, it would be hard to implement. But in open lots or interior garages — anywhere with a wall, fence, guardrail or space for posts — it is just too obvious and easy not to do, yet too few places realize the opportunity.

In areas where it snows, these lines do a lot more than just help guide people into their final parking position — buried under fresh powder, they can represent the only way to keep a lot from devolving into a state of anarchy.

Packing the environmental impact of as many as 275 actual urban trees, these multi-functional CityTree units are dense and efficient fighters of urban air pollution (the single largest environmental health risk). Each CityTree can remove 240 metric tons of CO2 per year, as much as a small forest.

Developed by Green City Solutions in Berlin, the CityTree is covered in moss cultures — their high surface area ratios help remove dust and other airborne gasses and chemicals at a rate much higher than normal trees. Each unit has solar panels providing electricity and automated rainwater collection systems to store and distribute moisture as needed. Sensors help monitor soil humidity, temperature, water and air quality in and around each unit.

CityTrees have started sprouting in places like Paris, Brussels and Hong Kong, occupying a few square meters on city sidewalks while also (optionally) serving as public seating. Of course, air pollution is rarely evenly distributed in cities, so placement in high-traffic/emissions areas is also critical.

Developed by an architect and an engineer, the CityTree has been in the works for over a decade. “Our ultimate goal is to incorporate technology from the CityTree into existing buildings,” one of the designers told CNN. “We dream of creating a climate infrastructure so we can regulate what kind of air and also what kind of temperature we have in a city.” Beyond this compact and mobile application, lessons learned from monitoring and growing dense mosses on individual CityTree installations could also be applied on larger structural surfaces down the line.

As driverless vehicles hit the streets and shared car usage grows, forward-thinking architects, developers and urban planners are working on adaptable designs to future-proof parking garage structures and give them second lives.

Big firms like Gensler see the writing on the wall, predicting car usage will peak by the end of the decade and ride-sharing may dominate by 2025. The effect of this on cities and real estate will be massive, freeing up home garages, street parking and dedicated parking structures — nation-wide there are over 500,000 parking spots and spaces inside buildings and outdoors covering an estimated 3,500+ square miles.

Gensler’s The Mod concept plays to new possibilities in light of their predictions, featuring garage floor heights that will work for new uses. Its modular sections can be easily moved or removed to let in light and facilitate circulation. Built-in utility hookups also help make conversion easier. The firm has also designed a building in Ohio with three parking levels made to be changed into offices over time with easily-added facades and details similar to ones found on other floors (below).

Another such project — a 1,000-car garage for building residents in the Arts District of Los Angeles by Avalon Bay — is to be completed in four years, a long time in this age of fast-evolving technology. Accordingly, their plans include tricks to make converting this area back to other residential uses easy and efficient. This includes flat floors (rather than inclined ones found in many garages) so they can be turned effectively into usable spaces, like shops or community areas.

Converting garages will be a huge project of the coming decades, but so will rethinking the way new architecture is designed in the age of autonomous vehicles. Without people at the wheel, cars can park themselves in smaller spaces. Loading/unloading zones will be reduced and the way people enter buildings (from the street rather than a garage) could change dramatically as well.

Then, of course, there are streets — with less street-side parking, space is opened up for things like parklets, walking and biking paths (not to mention all of the changes to how roads will work). Accordingly, many designers, developers and planners are wisely anticipating these changes — still, their ultimate effect on the built environment remains to be seen as the future continues to take shape.

Dishwashers have become household items in many American homes but have changed little since their invention, leaving room for improvement (especially in cases where ‘room’ is an issue). Many of the small problems associated with the traditional design are not initially obvious until pointed out — we are simply too used to them.

Front-loading versions can take up considerable space while taking dishes in and out. We take for granted, for instance, that the loading and unloading processes often have to be dedicated, all-at-once tasks in kitchens where folded-down doors get in the way. Pushing washer shelves in and out while moving around and loading adds unnecessary time to the equation. Front-loader doors also represent a potential point of failure if their water seals are degraded or damaged.

Designers Moshen Jafari Malek and Behzad Taheri have decided to take a different approach, developing a top-loading variant that addresses workflow and leaks as well as space issues.

Putting the spray bar in the center also eliminates another problem with certain conventional designs: getting things equally clean on all racks and levels. The designers also note that a variable-height center shelf could allow more versatility in terms of including larger pots and pans.

At the same time, the vertical design avoids messing with what works: porous wire-frame shelves and side containers for silverware. It makes you wonder: what other ordinary appliances are just waiting for a simple but powerful redesign?