Asian Cairns by Vincent Callebaut

 As a response to the rapid urbanisation going on in the country, Vincent Callebaut wanted to completely rethink the current structure of cities and do away with suburbs. “The more a city is 

dense, the less it consumes energy,” he explains

He continues: “The challenge is to create a fertile urbanisation with zero carbon emissions and with positive energy. This means producing more energy that it consumes, in order to conciliate the economical development with the protection of the planet.”

The architect proposes a new type of urban habitat based on the rules of the natural world, with stacks of giant pebbles housing entire communities. All energy would be sourced from the sun and wind, anything produced would be recyclable and local expertise would be capitalised wherever possible.

The green city

The cities are currently responsible for 75% of the worldwide consumption of energy and they reject 80% of worldwide emissions of CO2. The contemporary urban model is thus ultra-energy consuming and works on the importation of wealth and natural resources on the one hand, and on the exportation of the pollution and waste on the other hand. This loop of energetic flows can be avoided by repatriating the countryside and the farming production modes in the heart of the city by the creation of green lungs, farmscrapers in vertical storeys and by the implantation of wind and solar power stations. The production sites of food and energy resources will be thus reintegrated in the heart of the consumption sites! The buildings with positive energies must become the norm and reduce the carbon print on the mid term

At the end of 2011 in China, the number of inhabitants in the cities exceeded the number of inhabitants in the countryside. Whereas 30 years ago only one Chinese person out of five lived in the city, the city-dwellers represent now 51.27% of the total population of 1 347 billion of people. This urban population is supposed to increase to 800 million of inhabitants within 2020 spread mainly in 221 cities of at least one million of inhabitants (versus only 40 in Europe of the same scale) and 23 megapolis of more that five million of inhabitants

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SOURCE:http://www.iam-architect.com/asian-cairns-by-vincent-callebaut/