Project description
This proposal suggests the development of an urban plan for a modular and sustainable city, covering an area of approximately 2500 hectares. It includes the construction of 61 200 houses to serve more than 360 700 inhabitants. Of these, about 56 300 are meant for collective housing, accommodating around 338 000 people, 2600 are single family homes (kingdom’s official model), serving around 15 600 people, and, finally, 2200 houses are to be aggregated into compounds to serve a population of 6900 foreigners or expatriates.
The urban grid adopted in this development, which we chose to consider a district unit, was of approximately 800 m x 800 metres. These district units take into consideration several urban guidelines, including the distribution of public recreation and leisure areas, as well as what we call proximity facilities, related to education, health, religion, security, sport and culture. Thus, it is ensured that the distance between services shall not be greater than 10 minutes on foot.
We understand that making cities greener and healthier requires more than simply reducing CO2 emissions. With the environment in mind, we took this opportunity to create a “smart grid” system, which gives the city’s inhabitants the possibility of producing their own energy, using photovoltaic panels and/or wind generators. We want to give people cheaper energy and simultaneously reduce the environmental impact, with the added advantage that any excess energy is exported back to the grid for use of the city. Beside this energy system, we also considered a system for watering the city’s green areas by reusing treated wastewater.
In developing this plan, we have considered the benefits of Light Steel Framing (LSF) applied to modular housing and prefabricated structures, simplifying and speeding up the construction process, reducing manpower and obtaining high productivity rates.
The main objective of this plan is to develop and create further economic activities: services, commerce and industry, balancing the settlement of population and employment, in order to avoid commuting to neighboring towns. With this plan, we expect to generate approximately 276 000 direct jobs.
