Greenjobs Blog

We have already talked about Masdar City, a sustainable and zero-waste city in Abu Dhabi, planned and being built by the United Arab Emirates (UAC), but now Masdar seems to be smaller when put close to this new project from South Korea: Incheon.

Incheon is a new sustainable city planned by South Korea

This city will be placed on agricultural land in the north of Seoul, which enables nowadays 35,000 people to live there. Incheon will create an environmental community of 320,000 residents while minimizing the impact on landscape and the natural layout of the ground. Buildings will follow the natural topography of the terrain and they’ll be kept below 50 metres in height.

Incheon will manufacture photovoltaic cells and wind turbines; sustainability and self independency are two important attributes for Foster + Partners, PHA and Mobility in Chain (engineers and designers behind this masterplan), and they have developed and taken together a lot of cutting-edge green technology for this new sustainable city.

So there is another project which demonstrates what can be done for the environment.

Via – South Korea announces plans for sustainable super city in Current.com

Have you seen our cities currently? Are you aware their huge impact on the environment? Take a look at the massive asphalt jungle in Tokyo, New York, and other big cities in the world, and now, just imagine a zero-carbon, zero-waste green city. Impossible? Nope.

It’s real. The name is Masdar City, “the source” in Arabic language. Although it’s not still finished, Masdar City will push the sustainable architecture around the world to a much higher level.

Masdar City: zero-waste, zero-carbon planned city in Abu Dhabi

Masdar City is planned to be builded in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, 17 km from Abu Dhabi. Its construction started back in 2006, and the first area will probably be habitable this year 2009. The brain behind this operation is Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company).

They are trying to deliver a completely zero-carbon, zero-waste city from its very beginning, with a solar power plant providing energy to the construction process. Masdar City will also rely on other renewable energy sources, such as wind energy, geothermal power and hydrogen power.

Wastes will be reduced to zero: waste water will be reused, biological wastes will be used to create soil, and industrial wastes will be recycled and re-used. On top of that, cars will be banned, forcing people to use mass public transport and Personal Rapid Transit.

Sustainability, according to Masdar

That is part of the environment, one of the three parts in the definition of sustainability, according to Masdar. The other two are social and economy. Let’s talk about them.

Up to 50.000 people will live there, with 1500 business. 60.000 workers are expected to commute to the city daily. There will also be a university, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), assisted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Masdar is catching the attention of some important firms all around the world, such as BASF (which will provide energy efficient materials) Siemens, etc.

If you want to know more, visit their website at Masdarcity.ae.

I personally would like to see more of these kind of projects. They’re expensive (Masdar costs up to US$ 22 billion) but I think it’s what we need. However, future buildings seem to aim in this direction… Although they are mainly projects and not facts, we’d better wait and see what is planned all around the world. And thanks to UAE for leading by with the example.

However, some people say this can turn into a luxury icon for Abu Dhabi. In my opinion this could be, but the fact is they have managed to be leaders into sustainable building. Luxury icon or not, the zero-waste city will be built. And let’s be honest, if it turns into a luxury icon and it makes other countries follow suit well that’s all the better.