The document summarizes the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project in China. It is a 30 square kilometer collaboration between China and Singapore to create a model eco-city. Some key points: 1) The eco-city aims to be more sustainable than typical Chinese cities by focusing on compact, walkable communities and maximizing energy efficiency and renewable energy while keeping costs low enough to replicate across China. 2) While critics argue its 20% renewable energy target is too low, project leaders counter that the scale of the development with 350,000 residents requires more modest goals to be affordable and replicable. 3) Sustainable design features include an extensive green space network to encourage walking

1. Engineering & Technology April 2013 www.EandTmagazine.com
46 BUILT ENVIRONMENT ECO CITIES
WE ALL HAVE a rough idea of what an
eco-city is: some perfect unison of nature
and technology. Countless proposals of sci-fi
utopias have adorned the glossy pages of
architect’s portfolios, showing a bold new
way of addressing the imbalance of these
seemingly opposing forces. But when it
comes down to harsh reality, how realistic are
these artists’ impressions? And, seriously,
who has the budget to commission them?
The term ‘eco-city’ was coined by Richard
Register, founder and president of Ecocity
Builders. He says his ideal eco-city is one that
shies away from the town-planning of typical
American cities that centre on the car; all
boulevards, urban sprawl and wide
pavements. “We must begin,” he says, “by
building our cities, towns and villages
literally much smaller, based on the human
body’s dimensions and needs for energy,
shelter and land as compared with building
cities for the demands of automobiles.”
Asia’s answer
One collaboration between two of the
most opulent countries in central Asia
may present a viable solution to Register’s
conundrum. Sino-Singapore Tianjin
Eco-city is a 30km2
Chinese and Singaporean
government eco-initiative situated
150km from China’s capital, Beijing.
As the fastest growing economy in the
world, China is also one of the planet’s most
heavy-duty air polluters. But the arrival of
new leaders at the helm of this vast nation
– and leaders that who seem more concerned
with the effect its environmental reputation
may have on its potential to become the most
powerful country on the planet – could mean
that change is on the horizon.
The way in to this, China’s proposed
answer to its burgeoning air-pollution
problem, is via a humpback bridge on to vast
salt plains. The site currently resembles the
initial construction stages of Stratford’s 2012
Olympic Village. The Chinese government
specified a brownfield location, which meant
that in order to fulfil its brief the project had
to utilise a salt and alkaline site lacking in
water, transforming formerly barren land
into a thriving urban hub.
There is no single internationally accepted definition
of an‘eco-city’,but China believes it has a pretty good
suggestion inTianjin Eco-city. ByAbi Grogan
BLUEPRINT FOR
A NEW UTOPIA

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www.EandTmagazine.com April 2013 Engineering & Technology
The site’s location is mid-way between two
of China’s most historical, bustling cities; its
current and former capitals Beijing and
Tianjin. By comparison, this city will
represent a marked move away from the
polluted, overcrowded cities of China’s past,
showcasing a proposed future of tranquil
living and genuine eco-credentials.
A sense of scale
Critics argue that for all of China’s wealth
and innovation Tianjin-Eco-city is not a
stellar example of the perfect eco-city. They
cite the renewable energy target of 20 per
cent, disappointingly small when compared
to Foster & Partner-designed Masdar in Abu
Dhabi, which boasts a 100 per cent target.
There are various reasons for Tianjin
Eco-city’s more modest ambitions. First
there’s the population; Tianjin Eco-city is
providing residency for 350,000 inhabitants
compared with Masdar’s 40,000. Second,
Ho Tong Yen, CEO of Tianjin Eco-city, argues
that one of his city’s key objectives is to make
the project a scalable, adaptable and
affordable blueprint to replicate across
China, one which would not be possible were
they to fulfil rigid requirements such as
100 per cent renewable energy targets.
Tianjin Eco-city’s town-planning instead
pays particular attention to green
master-planning, creating compact and
walkable communities and maximising
passive design features, all of which make a
major contribution to sustainable
development without adding significantly to
cost of construction. It will incorporate
‘themed’ areas including a Lifescape, an
Eco-Valley, a Solarscape, an Urbanscape, a
Windscape, an Earthscape and
Eco-Corridors.
“Designing and living in an eco-city means
to say that we must live in a way that is not
destructive to the environment,” says Ho
Tong Yen. “But at the same time the city must
be one that is economically vibrant, where
residents can find jobs and enjoy a high
standard of living. We mean that whatever
we do in the eco-city must be practical,
replicable and scalable. This means that the
solutions we implement here must be >
Tianjin Eco-city is
under construction,
and is set to be
completed in 2020

3. Engineering & Technology April 2013 www.EandTmagazine.com
48 BUILT ENVIRONMENT ECO CITIES
< affordable and can be replicated in other
cities and on different scales.
“What we are building is not a high-cost,
futuristic city in a glass dome, but one which
almost any local government can build.”
The eco-city is being used as a test-bed to
trial new green urban solutions on a
commercial scale and in the eco-business
park only green companies are given
commercial space.
“For example, Philips is using the city to
test-bed new energy-efficient lighting
solutions; Hitachi’s Home Energy
Management Systems are being used in one
of the residential projects; and GM has
signed a memorandum of understanding
with the city and the local government to
explore the feasibility of piloting the use of
the next generation of their Electric
Networked Vehicles here.”
The city is also located 10km from TEDA, a
successful industrial park in northern
China. This means although the city will
provide employment for 50 per cent of its
employable population, its location will also
provide an opportunity for those who would
like to work further afield.
Built for humans
Tianjin Eco-city has been described as a
city of people powered by food, rather than
of cars powered by petrol. This statement
is perhaps an over-simplification, but it
is a core message that lies at the heart of
the city. The five districts in the city are
planned as ‘eco-cells’ adapted from the
Singaporean Neighbourhood Concept.
An eco-cell is a 400x400m square
based on the human experience of
what is considered a comfortable
walking distance. Each Eco-cell can
accommodate some 2,500 dwelling units
with approximately 8,000 residents.
“To promote walking and cycling, we
have 5m-wide cycling paths on both sides
of the road,” says Ho Tong Yen. “We also
have a 12km long linear park, or what we
call the Eco-Valley, running through the
eco-city and connecting all its major centres
and nodes. There will also be a tram line
running along the Eco-Valley. These are all
features that promote convenient walking,
cycling and the use of public transport,
[encouraging people] away from using cars,
especially when making short journeys.”
This does not mean that cars will be
banned in the city. At China’s current stage
of economic and social development, where
many people have recently risen from
poverty and progressed from riding bicycles
to affording cars, it would be impractical to
stop the use of cars completely. Instead, a
proposed 90 per cent of journeys will be
green, utilising electric vehicles and a
high-speed train network.
The eco-city centre represents the
‘living’ aspect of its residents’ lives.
When completed it will become a leisure
hub; home to gyms, sports facilities,
cinemas, shopping centres and restaurant
food-courts and the city will also feature
several amusement parks. As with every
other aspect of the site, its eco-credentials
will be incorporated into the recreational
areas in the form of lakes and wetlands.
After the waterways in the eco-city have
been cleaned up, it is hoped increasing
numbers of residents will fish on the
waterfront and wild ducks have also
returned to this once-polluted area.
Green buildings
All of the city’s buildings meet the
hybrid Chinese-Singaporean GBES
regulations, based on China’s Three-star
certification programme. The Institute
for Building Efficiency says the biggest
barriers for green building in China
is a lack of consensus on what makes
a building green, and in particular a
proliferation of different national,
provincial and city regulations.
Tianjin Eco-city’s buildings focus
on innovative ways to naturally heat,
ventilate and light buildings, and have
therefore have been planned to utilise the
natural wind pockets and light sources that
occur on site. One self-ventilating system
features large vents on the peripheral
of the units, facing into the wind. The
wind enters the building via these vents
and travels through a subway under the
building, before being released into the
building through small vents in the floor.
Commercial buildings have integrated
natural lighting, including façade shading
devices, green roofs and vertical greens and
minimised openings on the north-facing wall
to prevent heat loss. Glass facades have been
increased on south-facing walls to maximise
light and summer cooling.
City designers have
had to accommodate
a brownfield site
chosen by the
Chinese government
Stage 1
Stage 3
Eco-Valley
Ji Canal
~ 80 ha
~ 30 ha
Stage 2
Stage 2
Boundary of the
Start-up Area
Residential
Business Park
University Campus
Waterbodies
Commercial and
Financial

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www.EandTmagazine.com April 2013 Engineering & Technology
There’s more online...
Masdar: City of dreams
http://bit.ly/eandt-Masdar
Masdar vs Dongtan: A tale of two cities
http://bit.ly/eandt-two-cities
Sustainable facilities
In terms of renewable energy, solar PV,
solar water heaters, wind turbines, street
lamps powered by wind and solar energy,
and ground-source heat pumps are all
used on site. These may not be particularly
innovative new solutions per se, but the
scale and comprehensiveness in which they
are being implemented is quite unusual.
Five giant wind turbines announce the
gateway into Tianjin Eco-city, providing five
million kilowatt-hours every year, enough for
4,000 households, while solar panels installed
along the city’s boundary have a total
installed capacity of 6.6 million kilowatt-
hours, enough to power 5,000 households.
Energy efficiency is also a cornerstone of
the city’s overall design. Some 700 street
lamps line the green boulevards of the city,
running on a combination of solar and wind
to provide a constant level of power during
cloudy or calm days. But the centre of
Tianjin Eco-city’s effort is its geothermal
energy plant, dubbed Energy Station II,
providing 20,000kW of cooling in the summer
and 14,000kW of heat in the winter, plus an
electrical energy output of 1,500kW.
The final major component in urban
design is how to deal with waste. An overall
target of 60 per cent material recycling has
been set, with the use of separate recycling
facilities encouraged and kitchen waste
broken down into fertiliser and methane for
electricity generation. Six large pneumatic
waste disposal units sit behind the
apartment blocks to collect and distribute
non-recyclable waste underground via pipes
to help achieve the city’s target of 0.8kg
waste generated per person daily.
A wastewater treatment plant that partly
utilises a cost-effective dehydration process
will produce 12,000 tonnes of grade B-standard
recycled water per day. Recycled rainwater
will be collected via rooftop systems and 100
per cent permeable bricks. This recycled
rainwater, along with treated industrial and
domestic waste water will be recycled for
landscape irrigation and used for car
washing, toilet systems and construction.
An attractive place to live?
The residential skyline is currently
dominated by rows of regimented tower
blocks, which are eerily quiet in the city’s
current state of construction. There is no
doubting that Tianjin Eco-city’s design could
be duplicated, but do people want to live
in identical sky-hung apartment blocks?
Gensler – the Shanghai-based firm that
architected Shanghai’s colossal Shanghai
Tower, which contains apartments of a
similar concept to those found in Tianjin
Eco-city – believes that the Chinese
apartment block represents the merging of
the traditional and modern ways of Chinese
living. Traditional lane houses found in
Beijing’s hutongs and Shanghai’s shikumen
are close-knit dwellings arranged around a
communal family area, much like the design
of Tianjin Eco-city’s standard residential
unit and other apartment blocks encountered
in urban areas across China.
Although it is arguable that this model
would be successful throughout the West,
Gensler insists in modern Chinese urban
design the neighbourhoods are becoming
vertical; with gardens in central courtyards
to foster interaction. Another factor to
consider is China’s ‘one child’ policy. The
majority of families in China will feature
only three core members, meaning the
spacial needs of large families are unlikely to
be of prime concern. Green and blue network
planning is a priority for the city as an aspect
of its 26 environmental and social key
performance indicators, meaning green
outdoor spaces and ‘green-relief’
eco-corridors will not be in short supply.
Whilst many in the West will deem the
eco-city too regimented for their tastes,
Ho Tong Yen is confident that the eco-city
will become a highly desirable proposition in
economically thriving China. *