Italian architect Stefano Boeri has unveiled plans to create a "Smart Forest City" in Cancun, Mexico. It is designed to be at the forefront of greener and more efficient developments.
La Smart Forest City di Cancun è progettata per essere costruita su un sito di 557 ettari vicino alla città messicana. Secondo l’architetto conterrà 7.500.000 piante, tra cui numerose specie di alberi, arbusti e cespugli.
"Smart Forest City Cancun is a botanical garden within a contemporary city, based on the Mayan heritage and its relationship with the natural and sacred world"Said Stefano Boeri. "An urban ecosystem in which nature and city intertwine and act as a single organism."
The project is part of the Boeri Forest City concept. A series of cities consisting of skyscrapers covered with plants intended to purify the surrounding environment.
The Boeri company hopes that the project (pending authorization) will be built in place of a huge shopping center. Above all, he hopes that it will help transform a site into a forest that had been reduced to a sandpit for hotels.
"Thanks to the new public parks and private gardens, thanks to green roofs and green facades, the areas actually occupied will be returned to nature through a perfect balance between the quantity of green areas and the building footprint", reads a statement from the study.
Smart Forest City will absorb 116.000 tons of carbon dioxide with 5.800 tons of CO2 stored each year.
Solutions such as these can provide ideas for imagining new types of human settlement, cities created by man for nature and biodiversity.
Big Data for everyone
The data collected in the smart city will be managed with the utmost respect for privacy, and used to improve various aspects of city life.
The sensors distributed within the building fabric collect and share information that is analyzed and transformed into suggestions to support daily life.
Energy flows are monitored to suggest certain energy measures to users, such as making their washing machines or dishwashers work at times that guarantee a cheaper energy rate.
The self-sufficient city
Boeri collaborated with the German engineering company Transsolar per progettare la Smart Forest City à Cancun come autosufficiente nella produzione di cibo ed energia. Tra gli elementi inclusi per promuovere l’economia circolare ci sono i pannelli solari e i terreni agricoli, che saranno irrigati da un sistema idrico incorporato.
The water will be collected in a basin at the entrance to the city, which will also include a desalination tower, and then distributed through the canals.
Data la vicinanza di Cancun al Mar dei Caraibi, tutta l’area urbana è circondata da “giardini acquatici” che lo riparano dalle inondazioni. Il rendering dello sviluppo mostra che questi corsi d’acqua possono essere utilizzati anche per il trasporto fluviale.
Other features of the future neighborhood include an internal electric and semi-automatic mobility system developed by the urban planning and transportation company MIC (Mobility in Chain). L’organizzazione permetterà ai residenti di lasciare i veicoli in periferia e sfruttare tutto il centro come area pedonale.
Smart City for every need
Smart Forest City Cancun will host 130.000 inhabitants, with a variety of accommodations that will allow the creation of a varied citizenship both economically and professionally, and will also include researchers, professors, students.
The complex is also planned to become an advanced research center with six facilities created to address some of the main issues of a more sensitive society: healthcare, astrophysics and planetary science. There is also no shortage of coral reef restoration, precision agriculture, regenerative technologies, smart cities, mobility and robotics.
