Fast swimmers aren't the only University of Texas students with Beijing on their minds this summer. The UT School of Architecture announced Wednesday that a group of UT students and faculty will be collaborating with their counterparts at the Chinese capital's Tsinghua University to design a system of urban green retreats, or "pocket parks," in central Beijing. Fifteen community and regional planning, landscape architecture and architecture students, along with three faculty members, spent a week and a half in Beijing in May to visit the project site, located between Tsinghua University and Beijing Olympic Park, and will be working on conceptual plans here in Austin this fall.

Fritz Steiner, dean of UT's architecture school, said planning green infrastructure for one of the world's fastest growing cities could provide insights for future projects in Austin. "Both cities have a very rapid growth rate and are doing what they can to accommodate it," Steiner said. "The scale is different, but the issues are similar. Traffic on the Fourth Ring Road is no different than a traffic jam on I-35. People in both cities want to move to the most beautiful parts of the city, but as more people move there the qualities attracting them there decline."

Steiner said he didn't know whether the pocket parks will eventually be built in Beijing. Chinese authorities are already considering a number of plans for the area. But if UT students can learn from how Beijing has coped--and failed to cope--with its incredible growth, perhaps they can also offer insights into building a smarter, more sustainable and transit-oriented future for Austin.