Global Urbanization Defined by The City of 7 Billion

By The Editors

Viewing our entire planet as one urban environment is the idea at the basis of the project designed by Bimal Mendis and Joyce Hsiang of the Yale School of Architecture and Plan B Architecture & Urbanism, LLC.  To carry out this project, the two architects have been awarded the 2013 Latrobe Prize of $100,000 by the The American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows.

The title of the proposal is “Urban Sphere: The City of 7 Billion”.  The research described in the proposal will study the impact of population growth and resource consumption on the city of 7 billion.  One of the goals of the proposed research is to provide techniques and tools for architects interested in developing solutions for the global crisis of urban growth.

Bimal Mendis told The Atlantic Cities that “It’s impossible to look at the city as a kind of discrete entity any more given the way financial networks, ecological networks, social networks work”.

The animation below visually shows population growth in a 25-year time sequence for many different cities.  Each little white column represents the population living on a parcel of land 25-by-25 kilometers in size.