In a country where pollution is as much byproduct of factory output as it is dust kicked up from the innumerable construction sites that are rapidly expanding China's urban centers, "3D City: Future China" at the Beijing Center for the Arts is a refreshing look at a possible future that sees buildings melding with nature, instead of riding rough shod over it.

A dual exhibit between the visionary Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri and Dutch design firm MVRDV, "3D City" imagines an urban landscape that incorporates elements of nature into its very essence. In the main exhibition hall sits MVRDV's envisioned future in which the urban landscape has literally gone underground. Tall, rounded wooden structures made up of tiers of slats, upon which small figures of people and herds of cattle, sheep and other unidentified animals roam, sit next to each other in a formation that resembles a mountain range. Each building is cone-shaped and hollow in the middle, creating space for storage, housing or production, while each slat is covered with green grass, trees or crops. Each building is placed at such an angle as to minimize shadows from surrounding buildings and maximize absorption of solar energy. Windmills sit at strategic locations on the tops of the structures, and roads ribbon around the sides, providing fast and easy access up and down the construct.

Upstairs, Soleri's vision of an environmentally-friendly future puts urban spaces on a diet. His "lean" cities, comprised of units that can be added to each other to expand laterally, are self-reliant. All the energy is gathered from wind, sun and rain. Each unit is centered around a green space that acts as both a park and an air filtration system for the unit's inhabitants. As the city expands, it resembles a twisting line that follows the natural curves of the land upon which it sits.

Both Soleri's and MVRDV's works embody a passionate hope that the future doesn't have to look like the present. Will China be the place where these hopes become reality?

Beijing Center for the Arts, through Feb. 28