Future City is a national middle school STEM program that challenges students to design the cities of the future. Each year, students from participating schools form teams and work with a teacher and an engineer mentor to showcase solutions to a citywide sustainability issue.

The Philadelphia Regional Future City Competition was held on January 18th, 2025 at Archbishop Carroll High School in Radnor. The competition included 36 teams from Philadelphia and the surrounding counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware.

The 2025 Competition was entitled “Above the Current” and challenged students to design a floating city that can keep its citizens healthy and safe in the face of rising sea levels and threats from severe weather.

As in years past, APAPASE sponsored this event and awarded a special prize to a deserving team. This year, the recipient of the APAPASE Planning Excellence Award was St. Anastasia, a Catholic school located in Newtown Square, PA that enrolls 650 students from pre-school to eighth grade.

St. Anastasia’s entry was entitled Aquadon and envisions a floating city off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria. The conceptual city combines innovative techniques and technologies, such as floating gardens and energy generated by ocean waves, with traditional planning principles to create a dynamic and sustainable urban center.

Congratulations to the students at St. Anastasia and all of the participants. For more information about the competition and to learn more about all of the winning teams, please visit: www.futurecityphilly.org.