🇰🇼 Kuwait.
XZERO city: a new benchmark model for the next generation of sustainable cities. Kuwait is planning a 1,600-hectare development that will provide residential units, jobs, and amenities for 100,000 residents. Developed by URB, the ambitious project aims to promote a sustainable lifestyle with high standards of living, yet a low impact on the environment. The masterplan was designed using passive design strategies, as well as green & blue infrastructure, to create a sustainable development which requires the least financial investment whilst providing the highest environmental gains. Active strategies & state-of-the-art technologies are integrated into the city to provide the highest standards of living through its smart city grid. The sustainability elements within the city are also highlighted as features within the landscape to serve as an educational tool.
“The heart of this project is the unique resilient landscape, which is multifunctional and designed to promote health, wellbeing & biodiversity. The landscape is the social glue to the entire city, which will promote a vibrant neighborhood whilst connecting residents to all amenities within minutes. The landscape is integrated with wadis to enhance resilience & livability whilst also promoting variation of habitats for wildlife. The landscape is also productive, incorporating many different urban farming methods such as community gardens, bio domes, aquaponics, vertical farms & biosaline agriculture.”
The city is also designed and optimized in planning to be the most walkable city on earth. Primary & secondary walking networks are well shaded and connected with other modes of green transport such as cycling & electric buggies to offer residents the safest, most convenient & enjoyable travel to every aspect of the city. The city provides 35km of dedicated running and cycling tracks as well as a 9km of equestrian track which connects to the equestrian center.
The project is planned to follow the highest sustainability standards by providing multifunctional holistic solutions to address all the three key pillars of sustainability; social, economic and environmental. The aim is to create a zero carbon smart city that takes a balanced approach between these three pillars. A sustainability brief was created for the project with targets and initiatives, which was divided into categories to create a unique sustainability DNA. Some of these categories included water, energy, food, waste, mobility, building materials, health & wellbeing, pollution, ecology, green & blue infrastructure etc.. The integration of all these sustainability elements into the design at the early stages helped to achieve the highest level of social, environmental and economic sustainability.
XZERO is planned through its landscape which plays the most important role in the entire project. As a Biophlilic city, the landscape design will provide various environmental, social and economic benefits for its residents such as reducing air pollution, promoting biodiversity, managing storm water, increasing social interaction and connecting the community together. XZERO also uses nature as a multi-functional natural system complimented by green and blue infrastructure. The city has integrated technology such as Information Communication Technologies [ICT] and the Internet of Things [IoTs] into its hard and soft infrastructures. These technologies will transform the cities networks and services into a more efficient, intelligent and collaborative ecosystem.