When it comes to environment, the efforts for a greener future should begin at home. But, do we have enabling infrastructure for this purpose? The answer would be no in most of the cases. However, a new city design, if adopted, could make the present compact lives greener than ever. Named as Valley Effect, the new design promises to develop a carbon positive ecosystem of built and natural environments. It tries to achieve the environment-friendliness of natural valleys in a compact urban setting with the help of interconnected towers featuring a unique model of terraced urban farming.
At a time when lifestyles are thriving with continued negligence towards the cause of nature and living spaces are getting more compact, the designers have creatively utilized the building mass to provide maximum open space in a compact urban setting. As such, each apartment will have access to at least 50-square-feet of open garden space. Even the sliding brise-soleil window boxes would be used growing multiple small plants. This will allow the residents to become self-sufficient for vegetables and many fruits. It may bring back the age-old charm of farming.
There are also provisions for renewable energy generation. As such, the buildings would be aligned with wind patterns to create a valley effect and to maximize the output of onsite wind turbines. Also, the exteriors of all buildings would be equipped with over 4,800 solar panels and fiber optic light collectors ingrained into a sun shading system. With these measures, each block would produce surplus 121 percent electricity and also consume only about 45 percent of water. Moreover, each apartment would have an exercise bike that would be able to feed back clean energy into the electric grid with the help of a new Plug Out system.
Via: Strawn.Sierralta
