Shanghai, China (NCS) - Green houses, green buildings and green communities have been emerging around the world the last few decades in efforts to preserve diminishing natural resources in cities of overpopulation and excess consumption, but not until very recently a sustainable city was feasibly planned and put into effect.
Global design, engineering and business consultants, Arup, had more to toast on its 60th anniversary in 2006 than just the company’s age or success. Already in the process of designing some of the highest profile projects for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, including the Olympic Stadium, National Aquatics Center and new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, as well as winning an international competition to design the master plan and terminal building for Kunming Airport, the firm was commissioned in August 2005 to design and master plan the world's first sustainable city, Dongtan, on the island of Chongming, just outside Shanghai, China.
Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (SIIC) contracted Arup to design Dongtan and the two later signed additional contracts for two more eco-cities for which timescales and locations are yet to be confirmed. Once Arup gains approval of the Dongtan master plan and design from the Chinese government, SIIC will then invite international investors to fund the project.
A city of three villages, Dongtan will be completed in phases with the first phase planned to accommodate a population of approximately 10,000 by 2010 in time for the World Expo in Shanghai. By 2040, 500,000 inhabitants are projected.
Incorporating a majority of traditional Chinese design features and Chinese values, Dongtan will also represent the same diversity as other Chinese cities in terms of profession and income, with an estimated 50/50 ratio of lease to ownership forecasted.
While the size of families and bank accounts will vary, Dongtan will find consistency in the absence of waste-filled landfills, tailpipe emissions and city-wide pollution observed in most cities around the world.
Using the “Barrel Principal” of city development that states “the amount of water a bucket can hold is determined by its shortest plank,” Arup realizes that if they do not zero in on all causes of pollution and waste and intertwine multiple variables in order to create a solution, they will defeat their entire goal of a sustainable, eco-friendly city.
The economic and social benefit of the eco-friendly Dongtan will also be reflected through the resident to job ratio. In a conventional city, there may be 50,000 residents and 19,000 jobs. In Dongtan, there will be 80,000 residents and 15,000 visitors daily to the 51,000 jobs available.
One of the main objectives of Dongtan is seen through the lens of ecological foot-printing, the concept that measures how much land and water area a population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes under prevailing technology. A conventional city development footprint would be 2.332 earths per gross acre of development, while an integrated eco-city approach uses 1.04 earths per gross acre of development. Shanghai uses about 2.332, while New York uses almost 9 eco-footprints and Houston uses a little over 12.
Along the same lines, water and flood management are strictly controlled by drastically lowering the amount of water discharge and water consumption. For example, the water consumption of a conventional city approach is 7,660,989 gallons per day and discharge of 7,660,989 while with an eco-city approach, 4,226,753 gallons per day would be consumed and 1,135,940 gallons per day would be discharged.
Rice and corn will make up for a large portion of the agricultural production, and due to Dongtan’s proximity to the Yangtze River, fisheries will also account for much of the city’s food source. With conventional cities, there would be a net loss of production from 2,740 acres of productive land, whereas according to Arup’s plans, this sustainable eco-city will use 20 acres of city for “food-factories” with no net loss of production on site and half of agricultural land preserved.
Gary Lawrence, Global Urban Strategies Leader for Arup and one of the principal designers of Dongtan, explains how all things within the city and its inter-workings affect one another. “If you take one lesson from Dongtan, it’s that system thinking is more important than SILO thinking,” he says. In other words, seeing the whole picture is most efficient in tackling the entire project, as opposed to considering concepts in isolation and separating each component of a project into its own task.
In Dongtan, all cars will run with hydrogen or alternative renewable fuel, and a combination of cycle-paths, pedestrian routes and varied modes of public transport including fuel-celled buses and solar-powered water taxis along canals, lakes and roads will transport residents while reducing noise and air pollution. Visitors will be encouraged to park their cars outside of the city and use these forms of public transportation.
“The client doesn’t want it to be like
Magic Kingdom, but he also doesn’t want (unnecessary) congestion,” says Lawrence.
The city region will supply the bulk of its energy from wind turbines, bio-fuels and recycling organic material, and there will be an energy supply center that provides energy to the entire city. The supply center will also be a tourist attraction as well as a leisure park, science exhibition and education center. A combination of traditional and innovative building technologies will reduce energy requirements associated with heating and cooling of buildings by up to 70 percent. Green roofs on buildings will improve insulation, water filtration and potential storage for irrigation and waste disposal.
The preservation of wildlife and agriculture has been one of the driving factors of the city’s design. Ecological management and the protection of Dongtan’s wetlands, migrating birds and other wildlife, including seven endangered species, are key goals to the planners and designers of the city. Arup plans to enhance the existing wetlands by returning agricultural land to its original wetland state to create a buffer-zone between the city and the wetland, with the buffer’s narrowest point being 3.5 kilometers wide. Only around 40 percent of the land area of Dongtan will be built upon, and the city’s design aims to prevent pollutants from reaching the adjacent wetland area.
Computer gererated view of Dongtan's future canals
In order to create a water-locked community at Dongtan with low natural resource consumption and a high rate of recyclable energy, Arup engineers used a carbon footprint, like an eco-footprint, which gave them a detailed breakdown of where the majority of carbon emissions were coming from and enabled a strategic use of resources. Arup also studied and analyzed transportation, housing, energy, water, materials waste management and other areas of focus with the goal of identifying strategies that proved technically and economically feasible in addition to enhancing the overall sustainability and experience of living on an island.
Treasure Island, a sustainable island-city off San Francisco’s coast similar to Dongtan but not quite as extensive, is another Arup work-in-progress. Treasure Island Community Development or TICD is a residential and mixed use 400-acre development on a former naval base. It will be one of the most sustainable developments in San Francisco when completed, with over 50 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources.
Ove Arup founded his practice in London in 1946 with ideals and principles that continue to be embraced by Arup today. Above all he believed in the idea of “total design”—the integration of the design and construction processes and the interdependence of all professions involved; the creative nature of engineering design, the value of innovation and the social purpose of design.
Now, with strong roots as consulting engineers, Arup plans, designs and project manages in the broadest sense, from car styling and design to site infrastructure works, from massive offshore structures to communications and IT systems. Currently, Arup has a staff of more than 7,000 and operates in more than 50 countries, with projects that have taken them to 160 countries.
Focusing on sustainability in the 21st century, the firm believes that “the key agents of impact are energy and resource use. As the built environment is a major user of energy and resources both during construction and operation, the adoption of sustainable building practices must be a cornerstone of our society’s efforts to reduce our negative impact.”
The reduction of negative impact that Arup refers to in its philosophies becomes evident as the firm continues to move forward with its role in the development of the world’s first sustainable city and the beginning of total sustainability.
