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Dong
Shanfeng
Urban Planner, Architect, Dongtan Team Manager
ARUP
Case Study: Dongtan Eco-City
On 28 August 2005 Arup signed a contract with
SIIC to undertake the integrated master-planning of the built environment
for the Dongtan eco-city. Dongtan is situated on Chongming Island,
the third largest island in China, which is near Shanghai at the
mouth of the Yangtze river and currently a large area of mostly
agricultural land.
The Masterplanning is focussed on a 40 year
programme for creating a linear city on SIIC's 86 square kilometre
site. The start-up area of Dongtan is 630 hectare.
Shanghai Municipal Government is planning
to turn Chongming Island into an eco-island, and Dongtan as a model
eco-friendly area. Arup is providing a full range of services for
the project, including urban design, planning, culture, sustainable
energy management, waste management, renewable energy process implementation,
economic and business planning, sustainable building design, architecture,
infrastructure and even the planning of communities and social structures.
This intensively creative design process was
driven by Arup by first creating an agreed integrated sustainable
development framework covering economic, environmental and social
objectives which would meet very ambitious national, regional and
SIIC corporate objectives for a new direction in urban design in
China. This change of direction is referred to in China as a new
paradigm, a step change in addressing environmental pollution, reducing
emissions and finding alternatives to fossil fuel resource depletion.
Dongtan city will be designed as the living
expression of a modern culturally rich, very Chinese and very green
sustainable city. Through design we are delivering a rich experience
in Dongtan that could meet the satisfaction of "seeing",
"hearing", "tasting", "smelling" and
"touching".
Dongtan has three interconnecting villages
which all have a diversity of mixed-use development with different
themes of tourism, innovative technology and health. The villages
will be developed in turn and the first with a tourism theme is
intended to be complete and could act as a living city demonstrator
for the Shanghai world expo in 2010 which has the theme of Better
City, Better Life.
Up to 80,000 people can live throughout the
city and most of them can find a variety of work close by. It will
also be an attractive leisure and tourism destination close to Shanghai.
Residents in Dongtan have frequent public
transport, buses or water taxis never more than 500 metres away
forming a convenient accessible integrated service. They can walk
or cycle on a network of dedicated routes through the abundant green
spaces to get to work or go shopping or get to the local school.
Local food, organically farmed on the retained agricultural land
will be available all over the city. Selected waste from the city
will be turned into fertiliser to improve food productivity and
quality.
Fewer roads are needed per person, reducing
the up-front capital cost of development and road layouts are arranged
to serve local houses and not provide through routes, improving
safety for children and cyclists.
Waste can be removed underground in closed
pipes to recycling and treatment facilities where compost and energy
is produced, again reducing road access needs, with no dirty waste
collection vehicles, improving the cleanliness of streets and courtyards.
Clean safe streets and good air quality will all lead to much better
health and lower healthcare costs.
Energy for heating and power will be created
on site from wind, biomass, waste and from the sun through photovoltaic
panels built into the fabric of city buildings. Dongtan will be
the first city to have a hydrogen grid built in to service fuel
cell power needs, particularly transport. We have also been identifying
the commercial proposition so as to make renewable energy affordable.
Water will be everywhere in canals and lakes
but carefully managed to provide separate limited potable water
supply and recycling of grey water which is stored on site. This
further reduces energy demand and running costs and means that pollution
is under control.
The streets will be planted with trees to
give shade in the summer, the most striking thing will be the quiet
vehicles with no petrol or diesel engines. The sound of birdsong
and water flow will fill the city air instead.
This design work has been a mutual-learning
process, and in conclusion we believe that, the combination of Chinese
government ambition to change the urban development paradigm, the
visionary leadership of developer SIIC and the multi-disciplinary
creativity of Arup is creating a remarkable demonstration of how
city life can be sustainable.
Chinese
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