They Did It(?) - The Sustainable City in The United Arab Emirates

They Did It(?)

Jett Facey - Blog #1

What makes a city sustainable? You might think it means being environmentally aware: perhaps finding a harmonious middle ground between urban and natural. Maybe you think it means planting abundant trees, grass, and shrubberies with the aim of purifying the landscape. Or maybe you think it means throwing up loads of solar panels, recycling bins, and low-flow shower heads and calling it a day. If any of these solutions popped into your head, you’re by no means wrong. A sustainable city would imply a net-neutral (or close to it) impact on the natural environment. However, that’s only part of the story. A truly sustainable city must simultaneously exhibit 3 distinct facets: environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability. Only then can a city thrive not just for the sake of minimizing ecological disturbance, but for making it a human place to live and work. 

Planners at Diamond Developers scratched their heads in 2010 pondering this very dilemma: how can you achieve all 3 sustainable components simultaneously? Banks and loaners seemed unimpressed with their lofty ambition to create an entirely new community. After all, textbook developments economically succeed when developers take a plot of empty land, construct cookie-cutter suburban paradise, and then sell the homes for a quick profit. Diamond Developers seemed to want to do everything wrong: they wanted to spend excessive time planning and researching, designing cutting edge and unproven villas; they wanted to create lavish new Bio-domes, water-filtration systems, rivers and parks; and they wanted to construct communal centers such as plazas, shops, mosques, schools, and hospitals that developers usually never dared dabble in. The risk seemed immense, but the planners at Diamond were convinced they were about to strike a vein. 

In 2015, the city in Dubai was ready for its first inhabitants. Aptly named “The Sustainable City,” the new development boasted 500 new villas, 89 apartments, a mosque, a plaza, 11 bio-domes, mixed-use area with offices and shops, healthcare facilities, and even an equestrian center. In total, the development spans 46 hectares. Innovations in everything from heat distribution to water usage to rental income allowed Diamond to make their dream finally come to fruition. 

The first thing you may notice is the obvious abundance of solar panels. Indeed, Diamond included some 10 MW worth of solar panels, enough to power the entire city and then some. The community has solar panels baked into the design from the get-go, meaning that Diamond could position them as shades for both parked cars and as shades on roof decks. Each villas is optimized for energy usage. Being located in the sweltering Dubai desert, Diamond position each home to be facing north to maximize shade for everything except the solar panels, slashing AC usage. 

Villas are organized into 5 separate “clusters”. There are no traditional cars allowed into the bounds of each cluster, meaning that paths are specifically designed for pedestrian, bike, and buggy usage. This creates a more pleasant environment with less noise and greater safety for children. In fact, this city was built with children in mind, with parks, playgrounds, and an international school planned for construction. 

 Dividing the city is a river with large bio-domes scattered along its banks. The river is supplied by gray water — already used water from sinks, washers, showers, etc — that is treated on-site in an underground filtration center. The gray water is used to irrigate the landscapes and to wet panels built into the side of the bio-domes. These wet panels inside the bio-domes allow air to permeate through, creating a primitive, cheap, and surprisingly effective method to keep the bio-domes cool. Traditional fans create a negative pressure inside the bio-domes, meaning a constant stream of air is forced through the wet panels, lowering the average temperature around 15 degrees Celsius without the need for energy-intensive AC. Inside, the bio-domes house community-managed farms that include tomatoes, herbs, spices, and whatever the residents wish to plant. 

A beautiful plaza is located the front of the city, which helps keep the city economically sustainable. The plaza is open to the public and hosts office spaces, shops, and 89 apartments that are exclusively for rent. The idea is these rented spaces will provide consistent revenue to help fund the cities actively managed projects, such as the filtration systems, community programs, and general maintenance. Therefore, the city has no annual membership fee for its residents. 

The city seems to an outside observer a utopia oasis. On the aggregate, the city is beautiful and sustainable in all 3 primary ways. But Diamond Developers made sure that even the small things were accounted for. For example, all the lights throughout the city are LED, meaning not only less energy usage but brighter, clearer lighting. The city is surrounded by a 10-meter-high buffer zone consisting of over 2,500 trees, ensuring a great view and fresh smelling air. There are dozens of electric car stations positioned throughout the city, and with the profits from apartment rent, the city is even offering a $10,000 subsidy to residents to buy an electric car ($2,500 more than the best US government incentive). 

However, the community is not without its limitations. It’s small, housing only 2,700 residents. Most residents still have to make long commutes to outside the city for work, since the city serves primarily as a residential space. House prices in the city are astronomically high, meaning only the extremely wealthy can move in. Nevertheless, the city serves as a model to follow: one of the first of its kind. We must ask ourselves, what is The Sustainable City doing right, and how can we emulate it in our own designs? And what is The Sustainable City missing, and how can we best implement it? 

https://www.thesustainablecity.ae/inside-the-city/

https://www.baharash.com/architecture-design/dubai-sustainable-city/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCKz8ykyI2E

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sustainable_City