China Building 'Self-Sufficient' City for Future Pandemics

A new city near Beijing featuring wooden apartment blocks, rooftop farms and renewable energy is being designed with drone-friendly terraces and ample space from which to work at home in case of future pandemic outbreaks, its chief architect said. Barcelona-based Guallart Architects last month won a contest to design a community in Xiong'an, a new city promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping as "a new standard in the post-COVID era" that can also be applied elsewhere. The proposal, that includes wooden buildings with large balconies and shared 3-D printers, will allow residents to produce resources locally, and provide all amenities "even in moments of confinement", according to a press statement. "We cannot continue designing cities and buildings as if nothing had happened. Our proposal stems from the need to provide solutions to the various crises that are taking place, in order to create a new urban life based in the circular bio-economy," ," said founder Vicente Guallart. The competition for the Xiong'an project was held when employees of Guallart Architects were in lockdown in Spain, and that influenced the design "completely.  "We wanted to make a manifesto of those things that we thought were important during lockdown and in the future," said Guallart, a former chief architect of the city of Barcelona. For Guallart, the coronavirus is an opportunity to promote new urban formats focused on ecology. "People who can afford it will often pay to insulate themselves. Post-COVID enclaves with security, private medical facilities and on-site food production may emerge. Cities have seen what they are capable of if they face a challenge, and therefore decisions related to climate change and its impact on the urban model, on the design of buildings, on mobility, should be made immediately."