Califia is envisioned as a world-class real estate development and model ecocity—a true first of its kind in North America. As a comprehensive mixed-use micro-city model, the project will combine a variety of residential configurations with a full complement of civic, retail, and commercial spaces. Califia will synergize leading-edge green building design, advanced energy, communications, and technology systems, and innovative social frameworks integrated with exquisite natural environments to create third millennium human habitats.
This bold project draws upon the unique high-yield resources of the San Francisco Bay Area, an evolutionary hothouse and home to many of the top researchers, entrepreneurs and institutions who are already building a sustainable world. Califia will bring the fruits of this diverse and world-changing culture into a high-profile living example of a new urban lifestyle, a better way to live in permanent sustainability with each other.
In the development of the Califia Ecocity, the Green Century Institute (GCI) will leverage strategic investment partnerships for dedicated technology, health, education, hotel, and green enterprise components. GCI is working with the internationally recognized and award-winning Jerde Partnership and the highly regarded Cosanti Foundation, established in 1956 by visionary architect Paolo Soleri in the development of the Califia Ecocity proposal.
The purpose of developing the Califia Sketchbook Design Competition is to express to a wide variety of people what life will be like in Califia, a proposed next generation eco-city. People from around the world are invited to enter a conceptual sketch conveying their view of "slices-of-life" within Califia, revealing smarter ways of building, powering, and maintaining the urban fabric. We believe that allowing for more direct public involvement in the design of future living spaces is the first step in a successful eco-city project. A design competition is an elegant way to allow for such public involvement.
We ask entrants to explore in their conceptual sketches solutions to the following problems:
● Overemphasis on the individual and the negative impact of this overemphasis within communities: isolation and higher consumption.
● Quality of life being determined solely by certain economic factors.
● False assumption of infinite resources: water, food, energy, raw materials.
● Dissociation from the natural environmental and subsequent abuse of the land. Entries will show how people, space and technologies/implements can be organized to solve such problems in a whole-systems, interconnected manner. |
Sketches will be submitted in a digital format through
this web site beginning September 1, 2007 and ending March 7, 2008.
Entries will be reviewed and judged by a jury of visionary architects,
designers and developers. The jury will award two cash prizes
and ten honorable mentions. Honorable mentions will be awarded
in categories determined by the jury. The amounts which will be
awarded for the cash prizes are $2000 for the winner and $1000
for the runner up. All of these twelve prizes will also include
publication in a future print monograph entitled "Sketchbook:
Green City of Tommorow," display in an exhibition detailing
the work of the competition at both the 2008 Ecocity World Summit
and a San Francisco museum/gallery, an opportunity to meet distinguished
members of the competition jury, and priority consideration as
consultants when the planning and development of the Califia ecocity
actually begins. Fifty to seventyfive more of the top entries
will also be included for publication in the sketchbook monograph
and be on display at the 2008 Ecocity World Summit. All entries
will be published digitally on the Green Century Institute website
for the public good.
The Green Century Institute (GCI) is a non-profit research center
whose work is conducted under the auspices of the Rudolf Steiner
Foundation. We have been doing research in the space of green
urbanism and sustainable cities since 2002.
GCI is dedicated to the evolution of sustainable communities in
the 21st century by initiating a next generation living example
of an ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable urban
development, which we call Califia. Currently, our primary avenues
toward the realization of Califia are the development of the Califia
Ecocity project proposal, the Califia Sketchbook Design Competition,
the Sustainable Cities and Design Portal on WiserEarth in collaboration
with Natural Capital Institute, and the World Ecocity Summit 2008
in collaboration with Ecocity Builders.
GCI’s activities have included hosting influential conferences
with industry experts and potential community stakeholders to
develop the full design concept of Califia. On the occasion of
the June 2005 “Green Cities” themed United Nations'
World Environment Day, GCI produced the Green City Solutions Exhibit,
the Eco-Visionary Summit, and the Sustainable Culture Symposium
with leading experts including Al Gore.
