The winning project, entitled Forwarding Dallas, is modeled off of a natural hillside. The building will contain residential housing, a gym, café, exhibition space, and daycare center, all housed within a prefabricated green exterior structure mimicking hills and valleys. Several public greenhouses occupy the upper reaches, and the roof features wind turbines, photovoltaics and rain catchment systems.

The renderings of Forwarding Dallas look truly utopian—like pyramids of the future lined with botanical facades and occupied by healthy, fresh vegetable-eating urbanites. What's exciting is that the support exists to make the vision come to life, with groundbreaking scheduled for 2011. Dallas may not yet have a reputation as one of America's greenest cities, but with this project they certainly make a mark on the map, and may even become a model for both the process and execution of major sustainable urban projects.