A leading academic in urban planning and development has unveiled a prototype for Sydney’s first ‘Eco-City.’ Rafael Pizarro is a lecturer in Sustainable Urban Planning at the faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney.
“The idea came from the current crisis in climate change and global warming,” he said. “When this crisis became public with the Stern Report and the inter-governmental panel on climate change report, I decided that I wanted to give a new direction to my teaching, a new direction to the way I was training future designers and planners in this profession. So I decided to tackle this head on through the designing of cities.”
The project, White Bay Eco-City, features mid to high-density solar districts, food and energy production areas, storm water run-off systems and a water recycling plant.Residents of the eco-city would be able to get around on an internal public transport system consisting of a light tram grid and special roads for public GPS-guided ’stackable’ mini-cars.Mr Pizarro says two of the most important features of the eco-city are the internal transport system and the ability to use buildings to grow food.
“Food production not only happens in a spatial district in most of the eco-city, but also on most of the rooftops of the buildings,” he said.”We have created rooftop gardens where you can plant your vegies and in this way increasing the food supply for the eco-city while knocking out the cost and environmental impact of transporting food in and out. The other major feature is public transportation.”
