4/8 AIANY Center For Architecture
On Tuesday, April 8th Deion and I visited the AIANY Center For Architecture to look at the Co-Evolution exhibit. We learned about a new Shanghai SubCity that they are planning to build to become more sustainable. The SubCity is a urban island inside of big park. This brings people closer to nature and with the design of the SubCity, from anywhere in the city you will be in five minutes of a park or green space. This also goes for monorails, which they have placed in the densist part of the nine neighborhoods in the city, to greatly reduce the amount of cars. The city also has many cycling paths to encourage cycling and limit pollution caused be cars. This great “5 minute city” promotes walking and cycling as well as the use of public transportation. The buildings that are in the city are called “green mountains.” They are built so that everyone is able to have a terrace and the design of the buildings does many great things for the city. Another fascisnating thing about this city is the “breeze valleys”. The buildings were built to capture the wind coming off the river and other places. The breezes flow through the city to cool it down and then are captured by windmills that are disguised as street lights. This renewable energy is used to power many public facilities. Another renewable energy source they use are solar panels. In the neighborhood where there is the most sun, all houses have solar panels on the roofs. To encourage recycling the city implemented a plan that gives money for cash. People are able to give resource waste and in return get money. Another thing that really amazed me about this city was a fact that I saw that said “95% of the city can be used to bring back trees.” This meant that people are able to grow trees on their terraces and other places in the city. Unlike the rest of china, the SubCity has a very good water cleaning system. Their is a underground root system that is able to clean almost all of the waste water and this is helped by the great park around the city. The park around city also helps the city during its cold winters and hot summers. The earth is able to heat the city in the winter and cool it in the summer. The city also uses some of the earths renewable energy and buildings in the city are able to use 1/3 less energy than normal. I thought all of these things were very impressive and a small step to crack down on global warming in china.
-Quinn