Designs for self-sustaining Chinese city released

An architectural master plan for China’s first self-sustaining city – the planned 1.3 km² Chengdu Tianfu District Great City to be built outside Chengdu, China – have been released.

Developed by Beijing Vantone Real Estate as a prototype that could be copied by replicated in other locations throughout the country, the project is intended to respond to the problem of overburdened infrastructure in many of China’s major urban centres without contributing to high energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The architectural designs for the project were produced by Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill (AS&GG). When completed in about eight years, it is planned that Great City will be home to about 80,000 people, but the distance from any location in the city to any other location will be walkable within about 15 minutes.

The city will also be connected to Chengdu and surrounding areas via mass transit to be accessed at a regional transit hub at the Great City centre.

The 320 acre (130 ha) urban area is planned to be surrounded by a 480 acre (194 ha) buffer landscape, whose natural topography—including valleys and bodies of water—will be integrated into the city itself. Within the city, 15% of the land will be devoted to parks and landscaped space, while 60% will be used for construction and the remaining 25% will be devoted to infrastructure, roads and pedestrian streets.

This infrastructure is planned to include electric shuttles, plazas, parks and links to the recreation system. As a primarily pedestrian city, only half of the road area will be allocated to motorised vehicles.

AS+GG worked with the infrastructure consultant Mott MacDonald on plans for an eco-park to be located on the northwest edge of the city that will integrate waste water treatment, solid waste treatment and power generation.

The project has been designed to achieve a series of sustainable benchmarks including use -48% less energy and -58% less water than a conventional development of similar population. It is also planned to produce -89% less landfill waste and generate -60% less carbon dioxide.