Building of the first “Forest City” in the world has begun in China; this city will combat pollution and provide fresh air!
A “Forest City” might sound like it’s pulled right out of a fantasy or science-fiction novel, but this concept is actually being built in real-life as you read this. The first forest city in the world will be located in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province, China, and it is created by Stefano Boeri Architetti, an architectural firm owned by the renowned architect Stefano Boeri.
A sketch of how the architects envision the forest city.
What exactly is a Forest City?
The purpose of the forest city is to have the entire city covered with life. This should be a sharp contrast to the greyish cities we know of, and will hopefully be both beautiful to look at while also providing ecosystem services to the area.
The forest city in China will have nearly 1,000,000 plants of over 100 different species, plus an additional 40,000 trees within the city limit. Together these plants will be able to absorb 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 57 tons of pollutants each year, while also producing 900 tons of oxygen at the same time. This will at least keep the known problem of polluted cities at bay, and allows the inhabitants to experience the fresh air of nature without having to go out of the city.
The forest city will not only keep the air fresh and pollutant-free, it will also keep the noise down by having natural noise barriers, reduce the average air temperature, generate microhabitats and improve the local biodiversity.
The city will run entirely on renewable energy sources, mainly using solar and geothermal energy. It will be 175 hectare big, and have both housing for private citizens, commercial zones, recreational spaces, schools and a hospital, so it will be a completely independent city that won’t need “help” from other cities to function properly.
Will forest cities be the future?
Many people like to think that green cities or forest cities will be popular in the future, and we can of course dream, but at the moment projects like these are extremely expensive compared to creating a “normal” city. The forest city in China will most likely cater to rich people, but if production costs gets lowered we could see more cities like this in the future. The project hope to inspire more green cities, so it will be very exciting to see how this all plays out when it is finished. The construction will take a few years, and it will be fully functional in 2020 if everything goes according to estimations.
Nice post, I lived in china a while and pollution was horrendous, but it is also something the people are getting angry about. Which is why we are starting to see so much innovation from the government trying to solve it.
Gave you a resteem
Ah, that's interesting! It's a good thing that people are actually criticizing the government for it; or else nothing would ever happen.
Thanks for the resteem!
Loved it already.
But the question that always hunt me why is everything healthy and environment friendly always expensive.
Special ppl only can benefit from it !
I hope one day this idea spread around the world, although the world doesn't seem to be going this way . But anywaus lets hope
Thanks for the article @valth
That's a good point. I don't think environment friendly cities are especially expensive, but I think it's the other way around; concrete cities are extremely cheap because they require extremely little material to produce. Therefore green/environmental-friendly cities end up being "expensive", but only compared that what we know of already.
Idea seems very great, will happily visit once completed
Yep, it seems like a cool place to visit once it's done! Maybe we should have a Steemit meetup there in 10 years? :p
Imagine the mosquitoes
Hehe, yeah, that might very well be a big problem. It would all depend on the available water surfaces in the area though.
Lol , it will be a colony 😀
This kind of architecture should be mix with principles of social permaculture. The idea is wonderfull !
That would be amazing!
Nice post and I wish this spread all over the world. I want to stay once in this type of city.
Me too! Hopefully ideas like these will be more common in the future, and we can all live in a city like this.
That is the future if we want to survive.
However we have to change the normal cities to look more green. Plant trees, utilize the space on the roofs of the concrete blocks of flats and turn them into gardens. It all depends on us.
I agree. Most cities are already built ages ago, so changing it to be more green is a good goal they should all aim at. It has so many benefits to both health, the ecosystem and the climate!
Your typical Chinese facade. Will be just another ghost city in a couple of years time.
Hopefully it won't, but I guess we just need to wait and see how it turns out.
Maybe they should fill the ghost cities of Kangbashi and Ordos before building more.
Hehe, that is a good point. I don''t really know a lot about Chinese politics, so I can't really tell you anything about how stuff like that works, but we can at least hope this won't be another new ghost town.
this is amazing, and it looks incredible, that would be an awesome place to live, so much life and energy
Yeah, it would be an amazing place to live! However, I bet it will be crazy expensive to buy or rent an apartment there!