What will Washington look like in 100 years? Will the White House of 2108 be heated by pocket-sized cold fusion reactors? Will Potomac tidal currents light the Capitol? Or will the entire city be underwater, forcing the creation of a virtual capital to run our nation's government?

A design competition tomorrow at Union Station – City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge – poses these questions. Eight design teams, most from the metro area, will offer their visions for the future of our city. Ideas will range from the practical to the outlandish, addressing issues ranging from transportation to environmental concerns to infrastructure.

Last year, design teams in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles mused on the futures of their cities. The events were so successful that the event’s sponsors – the History Channel, Infiniti, IBM, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) - decided to hold competitions in San Francisco, Atlanta and Washington this year.

Photo courtesy The History Channel

Judge David Childs speculates the environment, both reducing current demands as well as cleaning up the problems of the past, will be at the top of the design teams’ agendas. Childs also points out that cities not only fulfill an innate human desire for community but are also environmentally friendly in their own right. Concentrating infrastructure is very efficient, and urbanites leave a smaller carbon footprint.

Childs praises Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for the city. Originally sketched in 1791, it has been able to adjust to two centuries of demands. But Childs also notes the Washington design teams face unique challenges, namely the height limit of the buildings. How do you expand density without breaking those rules? How do you improve terrible traffic and provide housing to shorten the dreaded commute? What about new technology?

This is the task of the following eight competitors, who will be evaluated by Childs as well as Robert Ivy, editor-in-chief of the Architectural Record, and Jess Wendover from the Mayor's Institute on City Design:

• Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners offers expertise in architecture, historic preservation, urban design and planning.
• Christian Zapatka Architect LLC specializes in modernizing and expanding historic structures as well as introducing new building form to the city.
• C U P is a collaborative team of academics and professionals, which includes Laurel McSherry, Helene Renard, Galia Solomonoff and Terry Surjan with expertise in architecture, landscape and linguistics. The C U P group members teach and practice at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., and Columbia University in New York.
• GROW:DC (based in Charlottesville, Va.) is a design collaborative and urban think tank.
• istudio/envision offers environmental responsibility in design and practice.
• Maryland Urban Research Studio is a multi-disciplinary cohort of faculty and students from the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, & Preservation whose work investigates the city as physical, intellectual, and cultural construct.
• OBRA Architects is a firm based in New York whose current projects include private residences in the city and Costa Rica, an apartment hotel in Buenos Aires, and a competition proposal for the European Solidarity Center in Gdañsk, Poland.
• Sorg and Associates is one of the largest woman-owned architecture firms in the country and focuses on modern architecture in urban settings.

The race will be fast and furious. The teams will build their presentations from 9 a.m. until noon, and then present their projects to the jury between noon and 2:30 p.m. The jury will deliberate and the awards ceremony begins at 3:30 p.m., where Mayor Fenty will announce the winner. DCist readers in the neighborhood can wander over during their lunch hours to look at the projects, or photos can be viewed online. The San Francisco and Atlanta competitions will be completed later this month, and you can vote for your favorite city of future. The winner will be announced on May 5.

And although technically there will be winners and losers, the real point of the competition is to create discussion about the future of our cities, Childs explained.

“I think there will be a tendency of optimism,” Childs said. “You can’t exist in the design world if you have a despondent view.”