Cities and buildings of Tomorrow

By #2050 the world’s population is expected to reach 9.8 billion. Nearly 70 percent of this booming population—6.7 billion people— is projected to live in urban areas. National Geographic asked experts at the architectural and urban planning firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) how they would design a city of the future, educated by lessons of the past and anticipating challenges of the #future. 

Whether it's embedded sensors or autonomous robots, cities are going to get a whole lot smarter in the 2020s. But some super ambitious developments are leading the way by building whole new city developments built around the latest tech. Here are 5 such projects to keep an eye on.

From tech trends to behavioural shifts and new ways to make smart cities economically sustainable, Matthew James Bailey explores what the next five years could look like.

Cities around the world can improve the health of their residents – plants, animals and humans – by implementing programmes to boost biodiversity.

Maisons connectées, technologies de pointe, gestion optimale des ressources… les villes de demain seront de plus en plus intelligentes, suivant la tendance de la révolution technologique au niveau mondial. En Afrique, ces villes intelligentes semblent rencontrer un franc succès auprès des dirigeants qui y voient une opportunité pour mieux relever le défi de l’explosion urbaine qu’enregistrera le continent au cours des prochaines années.

The cities of the future are being designed today. Climate change, disruptive technologies, human behavior data are some of the considerations shaping them.

Hudson Yards in New York and Sidewalk Labs’ project in Toronto are test cases that will radically change the way our cities work through the use of data and the Internet of Things.

Sheppard Robson has unveiled the mixed-use Citicape House in London that will have the "largest living wall in Europe" to help improve local air quality.

"A future in which our lives are surrounded by and intertwined with ecological infrastructure systems offers an antidote or balance to the future in which our lives are constantly monitored and informed by digital technologies."

Sarah Hinners, a landscape and urban ecologist focused on bridging the gap between academic research and real-world planning and design applications.

A next-generation metropolis will need to serve people and nature, while letting ecology guide its development.

By 2050, 66% of the world’s population will live in cities. With such figures, it is imperative for the city planners to consider sustainability as a critical parameter while planning the amenities of a megacity. Here are some of the simple yet innovative solutions that can help keep megacities sustainable.