What if? Why not?
Four short words; one entirely new mindset.
It’s the essence of ASCE’s Future World Vision project, simultaneously open to and questioning of the civil engineering possibilities that will shape the way infrastructure works and society lives decades into the future.
“We’ve got to have more people thinking this way,” said Lenor Bromberg, P.E., F.ASCE, deputy director of community development for the City of...
Our planet is facing the convergence of increasingly severe weather, increases in population and limited natural resources, exacerbated in the United States and many other countries by outdated infrastructure that is nearing the end of its useful life. Looking over the horizon and considering the quality of life of future generations, civil engineers of today have a responsibility to plan, design, construct, operate and...
Ten minutes in the company of Jared Diamond, or spent simply reading one of his books, and you’re bound to come away looking at the world a little bit differently than you had before.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” doesn’t just take a systems approach to questions of climate change and sustainability. His approach encompasses no less than the entire history...
The year is 2070. Imagine that sea-level rise has so altered coastal infrastructure that floodwaters have forced cities offshore, to developments that float on top of the ocean.
And here we thought the future of engineering was smart technology.
Perhaps there is merit in the art of being dumb. Technically speaking, at least.
The Emerald Tutu earned the Overall Grand Challenge Award, Thursday, during the 2019 ASCE Innovation Contest celebration event at ASCE Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. The Emerald Tutu’s lead developer, Gabriel Cira, himself refers to the project as dumb tech rather than...
Climate change is one of six key trends driving ASCE’s Future World Vision scenario-planning model. Already, right now, in the present world vision, climate change – specifically sea-level rise – is driving demand for flooding solutions in Southeast Florida.
Civil engineers in the region, along with local governments and cooperative efforts like the Southeast Regional Climate Change Compact, the Resilient Utilities Coalition and the Florida...
Mikhail Chester was at a crossroads of sorts.
He’d done plenty of good work in the sustainable engineering space – life-cycle assessment, climate change adaptation, resilience and the like – and won ASCE’s Huber prize in 2017 for these efforts. But there was something missing, some kind of unifying, synthesizing approach to tie it all together.
“A few years ago I stepped back and asked myself,...
David Odeh can’t help but chuckle at the irony inherent in his statement.
“The one thing we can say with certainty,” Odeh says, “is that whatever future scenario we predict, that scenario will not be the future.”
Odeh, a technical region director on the ASCE Board of Direction, is referring to Future World Vision, ASCE’s bold, comprehensive scenario-planning tool that helps civil engineers strategize for an...
ASCE News Future Forward highlights civil engineering projects, practices, ideas, and technologies that are future-focused and forward-looking.
Given the current infrastructure crisis in the United States, where need outpaces funding by a wide margin, the so-called win-win project is critical.
These are the projects that solve two problems at once, and one such win-win opportunity may be as close as your local city park.
“Parks can be...
