2026 Future City Competition
March 2026
Author: Annabel Crosby
The 2026 Future City Competition in North Texas was held this past January at the Tarrant County Community College – Trinity River Campus . It brought together middle and lower school student teams, along with their teachers and mentors, to design and build their own cities from the ground up. This year’s theme was Farm to Table, which meant teams had to think beyond just buildings and roads and had to get down to the root of designing food systems for an entire city. They spent months planning where the food would grow, how it would get to the livable areas, how the food would be preserved and stored for transport, and how they would give away the food surplus or use it for growing more crops in the future. They worked on answering all the questions one might have about a new and futuristic city and used their creativity to build it all to scale with recyclable materials.
They built cities with rooftop gardens, vertical farms, smart irrigation systems, composting programs, pollution reducing measures, renewable energy sources, and creative transportation networks to reduce food waste. Not only did they create cities which were pleasing for the eye, they implemented structure and processes that brought community health, access, equity, and environmental impact to the forefront of their cities.
The presentations were confident, thoughtful, and well-rehearsed; when the ice storm forced the competition to be moved to Zoom, everyone was so adaptive and no one skipped a beat in their deliveries. Teams worked together from a single home or off of multiple devices, parents cleared off kitchen tables to setup for the amazing models, and volunteers all logged on, ready to help. These students weren’t deterred by a change in plan; they were ready to compete.
The competition was a reminder that the future of engineering is still in good hands. The creativity, drive, excitement, teamwork, overall effort, all come together for a great outcome. The competition teaches them how to think critically, collaborate, and design with purpose.
Farm to Table wasn’t just a theme, it is a real-world problem that the kids came ready to solve.
The ASCE Dallas Branch was proud to sponsor this event. Macey Taylor, P.E. acted as a Special Awards Judge for the branch; Brayden Hoffman, P.E and Annabel Crosby worked throughout the year as members of the Future City board and on the day of the competition as well. Team Astrial City from Collegiate Academy was awarded the infrastructure resiliency award sponsored by ASCE Dallas.
Congratulations to Team Agrovena of West Ridge Middle School for winning the North Texas Future City Competition and going to the finals and placing second!
