Urban Re:Vision Dallas

Re:Vision Dallas is a new website dedicated to the City of Dallas's efforts to create sustainable urban areas in Dallas.

From the website:

"Re:Vision is a diverse group of people focused on changing the urban landscape by re-imagining all the components that make up a city block. From energy to transportation to commerce to community, we believe that by finding innovative, healthy and sustainable ideas to help revitalize one urban block, we can create a blueprint for better cities everywhere."

More specifically, the City of Dallas will be holding a design competition in January 2009 where architects and designers will be tasked with creating a "fully sustainable city block" in Downtown Dallas. Last Friday there was a design charrette where ideas were gathered to form the basis of the design competition.

Now I love my city Big D, but I am seriously skeptical about whether the city of Dallas would or even could execute a sustainable (green) city block downtown. The city of Dallas has enough problems paying its bills and is now building its own convention center hotel. With other issues facing Dallas, I don't know if it is in the position to take a project like this on.

Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what some of our local architects come up with in the design competition. Hopefully, the competition will be open for all and allow some of our up and coming architects (some who are my friends) an opportunity to shine. I would hate for the competition to be invite only or hijacked by outsiders.

More info about Urban Re:Vision Dallas here.