Zero footprint urban design
Introduction
A sustainable city, ecocity or ecópolis is a city that is designed following ecological principles. The idea of ecocities arises as a new approach to sustainable development. Environmentalists, as well as more people every day, consider that life in cities is polluting and destructive to the environment, since it encourages the accumulation of garbage and unhealthy conditions.
An ecological city can provide for itself with minimal dependence on the rural areas around it, and creates the smallest possible ecological footprint for its residents. This results in a city that is environmentally friendly, in terms of pollution, land use and reduction of the causes that contribute to global warming.
Ecocities can be characterized by several aspects, for example:
• - Organic farming, community-supported agriculture, to reduce transportation distances for the food produced.
• - Renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines, photoelectric cells or biogas created from sewage. Cities provide economies of scale that make these energy sources viable.
• - Various methods to reduce the need to use air conditioning (which requires a lot of energy), such as building low-rise buildings to allow better air circulation or increasing green areas so that they are equivalent to at least 20% of the total urban area.
• - Improved public transportation system and promotion of pedestrianization to reduce fuel emissions from automobiles. This requires a radical change in urban planning.
Examples of eco-cities exist a few, such as the solar neighborhood Vauban (Freiburg) "Vauban (Freiburg)"). On a smaller scale, there are bio-built buildings, such as the Melbourne municipal building, in Australia. Many informal settlements today practice the principles of eco-cities: efficient energy use, recycling, community agriculture, and pedestrianization. The Sociópolis project (in the Spanish city of Valencia) aims to develop integrated housing with low environmental impact, combined with areas of traditional agriculture and irrigation systems; the "Ecumenópolis" or Magnum Astron Eco-Cities project) in Colombia, which proposes the inclusion of advanced technology and high energy performance of its own invention. But perhaps the most ambitious project is being carried out in China, a country that has encouraged the construction of five eco-cities (three near Shanghai and two in Beijing). The first of these, Dongtan, is being developed on the island of Chongming, Shanghai, and has been designed to meet rigorous standards to minimize the impact The world's first example of a completely new city - for 50,000 inhabitants - and with 100% solar energy use is Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, designed by the Foster + Partners office in 2006 and which will open in 2020.