Who Rules the Sewers?

LOS ANGELES, CA. A UCLA think tank, cityLAB, has organized a design competition called WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture, to tackle the infrastructure challenge facing America's cities. Nearly $150 billion is allocated to infrastructure in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the Stimulus Package), making it the single largest line item next to tax relief. With so much money at stake, design professionals are concerned that this generation of built works is not only shovel-ready, but shovel-worthy. With its tagline “Whoever rules the sewers rules the city," the competition has generated global buzz. Winners will be chosen by Thom Mayne, Cecil Balmond, Elizabeth Diller, Walter Hood, Stan Allen, and Marilyn Taylor–some of the best architects, engineers, and landscape architects in the U.S.

The competition takes its inspiration from the Depression-era Works Projects Administration, which built public buildings, parks, bridges, and roads across the nation as an investment in the future. For WPA 2.0, designers will envision a new legacy of federally supported infrastructure hybrids. Imagine a parking garage that is also an urban farm, a climbing wall, and a drive-thru lending library, or existing highway and rail systems that distribute the energy generated–and now wasted–from passing cars and trains. "What’s in store for the city" cityLAB asks, "if design takes back the streets?" A call to arms (or to pens and computers), WPA 2.0 proffers the vision that America could not only fill the potholes, but make the physical environment more livable, more beautiful, and more sustainable.

Organizers Dana Cuff and Roger Sherman are betting that recent projects like the High Line in New York (an abandoned elevated railway, now a public park) will trigger a creative range of submissions from all over the U.S. “In every city there are planners and architects who are imagining more robust ways to revitalize local infrastructure. We want to give them a forum, to spark the kinds of projects that will serve communities. WPA 2.0 will get design back to work right when we need it the most,” says Cuff. While they expect visionary projects Sherman insists the competition is geared toward implementation. “This isn’t futurist science fiction, but it’s also not a new storm drain. We know that the first WPA deployed design that still benefits towns all over the country. That can happen again.”

The registration deadline for WPA 2.0 is July 24th with first phase submissions due August 7th (there’s also a student version in the Fall). Winners will present their projects on November 16th at a symposium at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. The following day, Cuff and Sherman take the projects to The Hill, to show legislators that innovative infrastructure really can rule the city, including the sewers.

Information on the competition and related events can be found at http://wpa2.aud.ucla.edu/info/. Please contact Tim Higgins at hhiggins@ucla.edu or 850.933.6274 with any questions.

Sponsors for WPA 2.0 include The Architect’s Newspaper, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, Ziman Center for Real Estate Development, Sarah Jane Lind, and The National Building Museum.