Sustainable Cities of the Future Part 2: Dongtan, China

Do you remember the Sustainable Cities of the Future theme I mentioned earlier this month? Well here is the promised second part! This time, I'll be writing about China's eco-city - Dongtan.

In the middle of the Yangtze river, close to Shanghai, is a 1200 square kilometer island. An island created by the natural flow of the river, home to different rare species of birds. And also home to China's new eco-city, Dongtan. The city of Dongtan will at first house 10,000 citizens, but is expected to be capable of housing no less than 500,000 citizens as it evolves!

The city will be fed with wind and solar power, and partially also from burning of rice-shells. The buildings within the city, will be built so the energy consumption will be aboslutely minimal, thus saving the precious sustainable energy. The city aims to be rather dense is well, thus minimalizing the need for personal transportation (anywhere in the city, it is expected that citizens will have to walk a maximum of seven minutes before reaching the nearest public transportation).

Despite the easy access to public transportation, there will be a park from a maximum time range of three minutes for all of the city's citizens. But because of soft soil in the island area, the buildings won't be able to excede a height of 4-8 floors, which will put limits to the city's density. Residential and commercial areas will be kept close to each other, so workers can walk to their jobs instead of having to use mechanized and polluting transportation.

One issue is left uncovered. What about feeding the citizens? Well, that part has been thought through as well. Under the city, underground farms will be built, growing plants thanks to UV-lamps, allowing agricultural production 24 hours a day, all year round! Such underground farms are nothing new - they are common in Tokyo, where as we know, the population also is extremely huge. The first fase of this wonderful eco-city is expected to stand ready by the year 2010.

Andy

Eco Garden-Home

While browsing the internet today, I stumbled upon a rather interesting project. It's nothing new, nothing too special and nothing revolutionary, but I find it rather good looking and practical. What I am writing about, is a prefabricated mini-home/office, that is meant to be installed in a garden or some other minor ground plot. Earlier in my blog, I wrote an article about mobile pre-fab homes, which I ended with writing that I most likely might write about some of the projects in seperate articles, so here is the first.

The house is designed by Eco Space Studios and it varies in sizes, from 15 square meters to 28 square meters. The little house has different variations, in which you can personally choose extra details such as, weather the house should have a bathroom, a mini kitchen, a mini second floor with bedroom, a shed, etc. There are many combinations, and if the standard choices aren't enough, you can even create custom versions of the house through contact with the architects.

So what's so eco with this house? First of all, the roof of the house isn't no traditional roof, it's covered with small plants, such as grass and mosses. Its entire facade is made of sustainable cedar tree, the interior as well, is from tree, besides the flooring, which is made of special rubber material. Besides the quality materials, the walls, floor and roof are all isolated with A-Class isolation, making sure that all heat within the home, stays in the home, thus saving extra coins on the energy bill.

Practical, economic and ecologic is what this home is, and with prices from only £18,950, it is more than worth the money for friends of the environment who can live in small spaces, or for those who just seak a garden-getaway, where they can work in peace, or just relax.

Andy

Norman Foster: Eco-Friendly Resort in Bulgaria

First of all, sorry that I haven't been writing a lot lately, I've been rather busy, but since I have all the time of the world today, I'll make it all up to you!

The last few years, Bulgaria - the Eastern European country with the beautiful nature, the wonderful climate and the breath-taking Black Sea coast - has become a very popular holiday destination. This is mainly due to the cheap prices. Since the tourism boom began, everyone has been building houses, hotels, casinos, clubs, etc. all over the coastal area, attracting tourists and investors, but through this whole building process, frighteningly few entreupenors have thought about the environment. This building spree has today resultated in many spoiled natural areas and despite critisicm, new construction sites still don't seem to mind their effect on the surrounding environment. You see, Bulgaria is yet a country under development, and at the time being, economy has - unfortunately - far greater priority than ecology. 

Speaking of environmental issues caused by holiday complexes, this is where Norman Foster's eco-friendly resort comes in the picture. This urban development project takes great steps toward creating eco-friendly tourism. The beautiful natural surrounding environment is preserved as well as possible, will thousands of plants and new trees will be built in the holiday complex. You can say that not only will this project protect its environment, but it will also add some new plantations as well.

The eco-town will be able to support no less than 15,400 citizens, allowing them to live in the green oasis all year round. And to underline its eco-friendly image, the town will be for pedestrians only, making the citizens leave their polluting vehicles in carparks outside the city itself, and thus reducing any further pollution. 

Andy

Bamboo Towers Beijing

This highrise project, designed by yet another Danish architectural bureau, Arkitema, is another great example of the future's sustainable architecture. It was presented at the climate conference in Beijing. With the Chinnesse government expecting no less than 300 million Chinnesse residents to move in to the major Chinnesse cities from the provinces by the year 2020, sustainable architecture is not just an option for China, but almost a must. The country's pollution is expected to raise to astronomical heights with the country's current urbanisation, thus making all sustainable construction a top priority.

The Bamboo Towers are a great example for such sustainable architecture. These towers will have an energy consumption that is 90% less than average residential structures of the same size! Considering an expectation of 300 million new citizens, buildings such as these may be China's escape from huge pollution problems (and minimalizations of the current pollution issues).

The structures will consist of a total of 157,300 square meters of residential space and 78,650 commercial space. Within the structures, indoor greenery will be planted to create a natural and clean atmosphere, immitating the outdoors in the indoors. Besides, the buildings' power will be gathered from the sun through solar panels, and also electricity will be gathered from the ground through geothermal systems.  

Andy

Copenhagen Arch

This elevated bridge-like mini-scraper is a building designed by the somewhat famous Danish architects 3XN. The building is built to connect two portsides from their seperating water channel between, while also creating an attractive residential and commercial structure. This structure isn't placed on some old dock by the way, since the surrounding area is a former dock, that has been turned into a luxurious residential and commercial area. This Skyscraper is not only ment to be a gateway to this modern neighbourhood, but also an icon of the area.

The structure will have a space of a total 62,000 square meters and though the height is unknown for know, the architects claim that it will be the tallest amongst those of its neighbourhood (the other tallest has a height of 48 meters). This building is by the way also a proposal, so it is unknown if it actually will be built, but due to the global econimical crisis that is plagueing us lately, the chances of it building built are unfortunately rather low.

Sustainable Cities of the Future Part 1: Masdar, UAE

As a new feature to this blog, I'll be writing a series of special themed posts about different themes, which will be updated every week. My first theme will Sustainable Cities of the Future, and my first city in focus is Masdar City. The following few weeks, I'll post blogs about other future sustainable cities, so stay tuned to the blog, and I'll feed you with more information on environmentally friendly urban planning.

Masdar City, a city located in the UAE desert is planned to become the first zero-emmission city in the world. The goal sounds almost too good to be true, but when you think of the projects that Dubai have been proposing and building the last few years, Masdar City is as good as reallity. The city's first citizens are expected to move in to the first built parts of the city some time later this year, and the city will be able to house no less than 50,000 citizens on a space of 6.4 square kilometers. 

So how will this desert eco-city get its energy? Well as you might have already figured it out, there is quite a lot of sunshine out in the desert, and once you build the world's biggest solar panel field, every ray of light will be harvested and turned into pure electric energy. This energy will not only be used to power the city, but also distillate water from the ocean, since that is the only possible way to get clean drinkable water in such a climate (well that and underground water, but I have my reasons to doubt that there would be enough fresh water from underground sources to quench the thirst of an entire city). So so far, the city has access to limitless energy and water, while having an energy consumption of an amazing zero.

Even though the city creates amazing amounts of energy, it is still being saved from being wasted. The entire infrastructure of the city is made in a way so that only pedestrians can move around in the city. In other words, the cars are kept out to keep the local air clean and further reduce pollution. A pedestrian-only city also allows the city structures to be built closer to one another, resulting in a greater generation of shade, and as you can imagine, shade is a grand gift when living out in a desert! This shade generation furthers the reduction of energy consumption, since it reduces the need of airconditioning, which is rather inevidable when living in such climates.

Hopefully this city will be built without any problems, and when (or if) this happens, hopefully many other cities will follow its example, creating the city with zero emission. This city is a true example of ecologically friendly future city building, that hopefully will show up some day in the future.

Andy

Prefabricated Mini Homes

The little house on the picture above, called the m-ch, has a price of no more than 50.000 euros and has the measures: 266cm x 266cm x 266cm and a weight of only 2,2 tons. With this microscopic size, this little mobile structure is able to support two people with every element a normal-sized home would have; elements such as a bathroom, a kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc. As a matter of fact, the home itself has all of the neccessary everyday installations fixed at fabrication; fridge, waterheater, microwave, airconditioner, shower, flat screen tv, sink, toilet, etc. As a matter of fact, a compact table can be expanded to a 105cm x 65cm table that can support up to five people! Impressive isn't it? Considering the size of the structure of course. These small "cubes" can even be stacked on a vertical plan, creating a dense high rise residential building, perhaps even entire complexes of such buildings. The vertical plan complex is illustrated below.

This little dwelling is just one of various such prefabricated structures. There are many other types and sizes of such small buildings and even though it is no new news, they seem to be growing in popularity throughout the world. One has reasons to believe that this is due to modern-day environmental campaigns, since these little homes are generally more sustainable than homes of larger sizes. 

As practical as these buildings are, some architects have even taken these these mobile prefabricated buildings to further levels by integrating them with natural environments. This is in certain designes achieved by creating treehouse structures that are elevated from ground level and built with the support of trees. More treehouse designs can be seen at Baumraum.

Other ideas are similiar structures built on poles, thus being able to be built on aquatic areas. Why would anyone want to elevate a house when the terrain allows for it to be built on ground level? Well with all the global warming activity in these times, who knows what flooding activites our planet will experience in the future. These small dwellings might in distant futures even become our only refuge from great floods. Who knows? Only the future can tell. 

This illustration is of the Single Hauz project, designed by the Polish architectural bureau Front Architects. The project is so elegant, practical and its own way revolutionary, that I might be writing a little article about it all alone in the near future. 

Andy

Shanghai Tower

As many of us know, the Shanghai Finance Center had the goal of becoming the world's tallest building, surpassing the Taipei 101 in height, but after the announcement of the Burj Dubai project, this goal was litterally crippled. This tower, the Shanghai Tower, is perhaps a Chinesse step closer towards achieving ridicilous Burj Dubai heights, even though it is still far from being near as tall. This skyscraper is planned to have a height of no less than impressing 632 meters, and an array of 128 floors. The completion date is partially set to 2012, but the building will first be opened for full functionality in 2014.

Despite it's amazing hieght, this building's most aestethic feature to me, is its elegant curvy shape. This unique shape is surprusingly aerodynamic and thanks to it, the skyscraper reduces its windload with up to 24%.

From the environmental point of view, this skyscraper isn't as sustainable as the Rotating Tower in Dubai, but has some Green elements to it. Some of these are a an outter "skin" on the structure, which minimizes energy consumption. This skin facade also creates thermal buffer zones, in which sunlight heating is made possible. The building's spiral structure also collects rainwater on its curving roofs, which is later used for the skyscraper's heating and aircondition system, thus relieving the nature from more extra energy consumption.

That's about it about this Chinesse monument. If you wish to follow the construction updates for this tower, go to Skyscraper City.

Andy

Dubai Rotating Skyscraper

So here it is, my first ever true blog post. I choose the Rotating Skyscraper of Dubai as my first post, since this structure has amazed me in quite a while. This 420 meter high, 80 floor multi-use skyscraper has, as the first ever, a fully rotating structure, with dynamic floor systems, that allow the inhabitants of each floor to rotate their building story in whatever direction they wish, thus giving the inhabitants complete control over their view and panorama of the city. This revolutionary dynamic tower is expected complete by the year 2012. 

Besides allowing the inhabitants to change their views at any time through the rotation of the structure, luxury condos at the top floors of the skyscraper also have connecting car-lifts that elevate the owners cars all the way to the very top of the skyscraper in a garage hundreds of meters above ground level! But besides this skyscraper creating new standards of skyscraper living, the Rotating Tower of Dubai also has brought with it new levels of green skyscraper building. This skyscraper is extremely enviromentally efficient and sustainable, since it in itself is actually a powerplant as well as a luxurious residential and multi purpose skyscraper!

How does it work? Well it's actually rather simple; between each floor of the building is a wind turbine which makes use of any wind activity and transforming it into electricity. Also, on top of each floor, are roofings of solar panels, which, thanks to the buildings flexibility, can be moved in such positions, that the solar energy is maximally used throughout the entire day. According to the Dynamic Architecture website, a minimum of 20% of the building's solar panels have constant direct access to sunlight. But the good news don't end here!

The construction of the skyscraper itself is also enviromentally friendly and is different from traditional skyscraper construction. The reason for this, is that all of the Rotating Tower's components are pre-fabricated and transported to the building site where they only need to be put in place on the skyscraper structure.

Such revolutionary sustainable structures are still only in development today, and only affordable for high-class citizens, but perhaps someday, such structures will be common to all and aviable in massive numbers, perhaps cities might be planned with such low-energy consuming structures, and with cities of such structures, our traditional infrastructure and way of life may be forever changed.

Andy

The Beginning

Hello everyone!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my first post on my new blog. Naturally it isn't the last, since this is only the very beginning! For now I have just been adjusting some elements on my page, but they're history now, so i'm going to begin posting this very moment! Hope you stick around and follow the progress of this site. It's still in an early stage, but I gurantee it will develope as fast as possible and I'll be posting everything I can about all the projects I can find. Have fun everyone!

Andy