Dongtan New Town

Key Principles

Developing virtuous cycles
Identifying priorities and interdependencies

Details

At Dongtan an integrated design approach is being adopted to enable delivery of a major sustainable city. The model identifies how the wide ranging technical inputs (transport, waste management, energy supply) can be optimised to deliver the desired sustainability performance objectives.

Arups Integrated Resource Management (IRM) model was used to support the design decision-making process. The IRM approach enables multi-disciplinary design parameters that have the potential to influence sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) to be input into a common data model.

The model acts as an interface between the sustainability framework and the design, and by referencing underlying data inventories, can rapidly appraise a multi-disciplinary masterplan. Its real benefit is in using the model iteratively initially to compare different options and scenarios, and subsequently to optimise a selected design by a process of design-evaluate-refine.

Using the model includes:

Development of a sustainability appraisal framework comprising a set of objectives, KPIs and targets
Establishing targets that cover aspects of sustainability management – social, economic, environmental and natural resources.

Dongtan is intended to deliver the world’s first zero carbon city. Using the model, the team were able to test different design scenarios to derive a zero carbon solution taking into account all significant contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. This involved, for example, design measures to dramatically reduce energy use in buildings and employing mixed use and density scenarios to reduce the need to travel.