Winners of ResilientCity.org Competition offer fresh ideas about reshaping
cities for a resilient future.

TORONTO , Sept. 23 /CNW/ - "The future of our cities depends on ideas like the ones presented by the winners of the 1st ResilientCity.org Design Competition," says Craig Applegath, Principal at Cohos Evamy integratedesign(TM), and founder of ResilientCity.org.

Speaking today at the Green Building Festival, part of this year's IIDEX/NEOCON Conference held in Toronto , on the topic of Beyond Sustainability: Designing Our Cities For Resiliency In The Face of Climate Change, Population Growth and Peak Oil, Craig stressed the importance of launching a vigorous debate about the future of our cities.

Four months ago, the ResilientCity.org web site was launched to create a focus for debate and stimulate new ideas about rethinking the design approach to cities. A design competition was launched, resulting in more than 50 enquiries and 22 formal entries received. Entries came from around the globe, including proposals centered on cities in India , Mexico , Israel , Tibet, Germany , as well as the USA and Canada .

The winner, From the Ground Up, from by Michael Haggerty , of Brooklyn, NY , USA, examined how to turn the low density residential suburb of Newark , New Jersey into a higher density, mixed-use, self sufficient re-localized neighbourhood. According to the jury, "The winner did a good job of understanding all the principles of resiliency, and presented them in a highly legible fashion. The solutions used cultural, social and economic elements needed to integrate a new food supply source into an economically viable model."

According to Craig, "This was a very bottom-up, grassroots approach, very do-able in a neighbourhood context." For more details go to: www.resilientcity.org.

Commenting on the competition, Craig added: "While none of the entries broke new ground, they presented a number of very credible and implementable solutions that could be utilized today to move our cities towards a more resilient design approach. The importance of this competition is to stimulate dialogue, to get people thinking and talking about ways to meet the challenges of designing cities for a future faced with large population growth, significant climatic changes and more self sufficient energy sources. How will our cities have to change to survive and thrive in this new environment? What responsibilities do urban designers, city planners and architects have to make the necessary changes?

ResilientCity.org is a not-for-profit website focused on developing creative, practical, and implementable urban planning and building design strategies that address the combined problems of climate change, peak oil, and global population growth with the purpose of creating more resilient cities.

For further information: Craig Applegath, [email protected]; For media enquiries, contact: Eva Innes, [phone] or [email protected]