The plan focused on creating fully integrated and interconnected connections between existing transport links and the new arts district. Transportation strategies include new metro stations, walking paths and footbridges, ferries across the water, and a fleet of eco minibuses within the district itself. City Park is being designed to achieve carbon neutral status through highly efficient buildings and low-energy infrastructure. The low-energy design includes district cooling/heating, grey water recycling, energy recovery systems for sewage, recycling, a waste-to-energy plant, and provisions for solar and wind energy generation.
+ West Kowloon Cultural District Authority
[...] Foster + Partners has just unveiled yet another competition-winning design – this time for a beautiful bank headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The energy-efficient building will echo the landscaping of the nearby park on its campus and features an undulating overhanging roof. Designed in collaboration with construction firm CRIBA S.A. and local architect BBRCH-Minond, the new corporate headquarters of the Banco Ciudad de Buenos Aires will seek LEED Silver certification. [...]
[...] favorite Foster and Partners designed these gorgeous eco-friendly residences for a community called Banyan Tree Corniche Bay in [...]
It sounds like a pretty lousy park if it’s only carbon neutral, shouldn’t it be carbon negative?
I agree with badconsumer. There is simply no excuse not to go carbon-negative now we are capable. And with these “superstar architect” firms claiming so many kudos for just doing the minimum, the rest of us need to help them come up to speed and into the real world of sustainability. Demand more.
Foster and Partners, HOK and others: we need you to put as much effort and resources into pushing through leading-edge and deep sustainability as you currently devote to hyperbole and marketing. It’s your job not only to showcase a better way forward, but to educate your clients. Please stop praising yourselves for taking minimal sustainability measures and join the rest of us in making the changes required.
And before you sign-off on these plans, might you not want to give a thought to predicted sea levels for 2050 and beyond?