12 CONCEPTS FOR FUTURE CITIES

Walkability & Hyperdensity: 12 Concepts for Future Cities
By Steph, Web Urbanist, 6 January 2014.

The city of the future addresses problems like overpopulation, pollution and sprawl by building high-density vertical neighbourhoods that are interconnected at all levels so residents can move freely from one place to another on foot. These 12 city concepts, some of which are already under construction, emphasize walkability, sometimes going so far as to ban cars altogether.

1. Car-Free City in China

China is creating a totally car-free city from scratch, building a new urban centre around a high-rise core housing 80,000 people. Great City, planned for a rural area outside Chengdu, will be entirely walkable and surrounded by green space. Getting from the centre to the outer ring of parks on foot takes just ten minutes. Other nearby urban centres will be accessible via mass transit. The city will use 48% less energy and 58% less water than a more conventional city of the same size, and will produce 89% less landfill waste.

2. Masdar, World’s First Zero-Carbon City

The world’s most sustainable metropolis - with no cars or skyscrapers allowed - is currently under construction in the desert outside Abu Dhabi. Masdar, the world’s first zero-carbon, zero waste city, will feature a public rapid transit system in place of personal automobiles, and will be fuelled by solar, wind and geothermal power. Giant ‘sunflower umbrellas’ designed for the city centre will provide movable shade during the day, store heat, and then close and release heat at night. [Masdar City website]

3. Shan-Shui City

MAD Architects envisions Shan-Shui City as the city of the future. Inspired by the worship of mountains and water in China, the concept is made up of large-scale mixed-use buildings with lots of public spaces where people can gather, communicate and enjoy nature. High-density living and making all necessary resources readily available within easy walking or public transit distance is a far more sustainable way of building a city than the current trend of “boxes spreading all over,” say the architects. The concept makes access to nature just as vital as access to schools, health care and work.

4. Dubai Sustainable City

Baharash Architecture proposes a sustainable Dubai incorporating “the best practices in environmental building technologies,” with a strong focus on community connections and social interaction in green spaces. The design consists of 550 residential villas, organic farms, educational facilities and 600,000 square feet of solar panels. The city will produce 50 percent of its own energy through solar power and offset its carbon footprint via mass transit.

5. The Green Gothenburg of the Future

Gothenburg, Sweden could be much greener, especially as envisioned by Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture. ‘Super Sustainable City’ makes Gothenburg self-sufficient in terms of energy and food, making use of the city’s rooftops to add space for growing crops and installing solar panels and wind mills. Denser housing reduces traffic, and the river becomes a more important avenue for transport.

6. Multiplicity by John Wardle Architects

“Melbourne has not grown out, but up and down,” say John Wardle Architects about their concept Multiplicity, which imagines the Australia city as it could be one hundred years from now. “New air and foundation rights within the city grid open completely new narratives. There are now multiple cities, multiple stories within the original street greed. A datum high above has created multiple ground planes and urban topographies including food production, rain harvesting and energy generation.”

7. The Walkable City: San Juan, Puerto Rico

The entire city of San Juan, Puerto Rico is getting a US$1.5 billion transformation into a ‘walkable city,’ with a new mass transit system. The biggest (and most controversial) change? No cars allowed within the city, at all. San Juan has suffered from a shrinking population over the past 60 years and officials want to draw in new people with the allure of a totally walkable downtown centre where pedestrians never have to worry about dodging cars or breathing in the exhaust of idling vehicles. The city’s beautiful beaches are currently mostly inaccessible due to ports and excessive reliance on cars.

8. Rethinking Athens

The winning design of the competition ReThink Athens, by OKRA, transforms the heart of the city by making it vibrant, green and accessible by foot traffic rather than vehicles. Green spaces provide shade and shelter and offer heat mitigation, encouraging more outdoor activity. The new green framework also provides a walkable link to all adjacent neighbourhoods.

9. Floating Agricultural and Industrial City for Haiti

Haiti is an island nation ravaged by poverty and repeated natural disasters, such as the earthquake that levelled much of Port-au-Prince and left millions of people without safe housing. Architect E. Kevin Schopfer imagines a new floating city for 30,000 residents just off the shore offering productive, liveable land that can support agriculture and light industry. The 2-mile diameter complex is made up of four neighbourhoods of tethered floating modules connected by a linear canal system. Built to withstand hurricanes and typhoons, the city ca be expanded as needed.

10. Three-Dimensional City Grid

What would our cities be like if we built all of our architecture on a three-dimensional grid? This entry for the eVolo 2011 Skyscraper Competition, called NeoTax, imagines structures with small footprints that expand up and out. Organized on a horizontal and vertical street grid, it’s based on a modular system where each module can be viewed as a separate neighbourhood and buildings connect to each other above ground level, enhancing mobility from one neighbourhood to the next while leaving lots of green space untouched.

11. Asian Cairns

Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is known for fanciful designs based on natural forms, like lotus-shaped floating cities. This time, it’s a vertical city for Shenzen, China, modelled after cairns, or towers of stones. “The challenge is to create a fertile urbanization with zero carbon emissions and with positive energy,” says the architect. This design for a new urban habitat centred on the rules of the natural world offers high population density and has orchards and gardens built into the residential towers. Each tower contains as many as 20 glazed ‘pebbles’  covered in solar panels and wind turbines.

12. Fear-Free City

What does it mean to live in a fear-free city? This proposal created for the Now+When: Australian Urbanism exhibition at the 2010 Venice Biennale focuses on the things that make people feel free and safe in cities rather than the things that promote fear. That means building high structures with a lattice-like pattern of streets and other spaces that emphasize interconnectedness and movement. Visible links connecting the various buildings and neighbourhoods at all levels make the city feel more open and permeable.

[Source: Web Urbanist. Edited.]