The Phoenix of Shanghai
"No country has emerged as an industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental problems but China’s pollution problem has shattered all precedents." - The New York Times
"Dongtan was a rare chance, to demonstrate that growth could happen a different way." - Alejandro Gutierrez, Chief Architect
In one of the most polluted nations in the world is an island, outside one of China's most bustling, sprawling, modern cities, Shanghai. A dream is being built there -- a carefully planned eco-city with every block engineered in response to the world's environmental crisis.
This year, for the first time in history, the majority of the world's population lives in cities. By 2050, two-thirds will call a city home. Most of that urban growth will happen in the developing world.
Dongtan is a dramatic gambit, and not just because a whole city will rise, fully realized, from nothing. It is a test of a radical new approach to urban design, one that suggests cities across China and the rest of the developing world can actually get greener as they grow. "It will address the central problem of this age — resource efficiency — and how it relates to cultural, social, and economic development," says designer Alejandro Gutierrez.
Dongtan's master plan outlines the world's first green city, every block engineered in response to China's environmental crisis. "We're not focused on the form," Gutierrez explains. "We're focused on the performance of the form." He and his team imagine a city powered by local, renewable energy, with super efficient buildings clustered in dense, walkable neighborhoods; a recycling scheme that repurposes 90 percent of all waste; a network of high tech organic farms; and a ban on any vehicle that emits CO2.
The Phoenix of Shanghai will capture all the excitement and creativity that went into originating these plans and, through animation, create for the audience what they will eventually see constructed and the impact that the very idea of it is having on other new developments elsewhere in the world even before it is finished. We will cover the pitfalls encountered in bringing this dream to reality up until the opening in 2010, when Dongtan could usher in an era where a city can be its own sustainable ecosystem.