While Rioja is a name that is normally associated with red or white, the autonomous Spanish province will soon be just as synonymous with green – building green, that is. This week the local government gave the green light to the Logroño Montecorvo Eco City project, an ambitious carbon neutral development north of its capital city, Logroño. Designed by Dutch firm MVRDV and Spanish firm GRAS, the stunning development will feature enough photovoltaic cells and wind turbines to produce 100% of it’s energy.
The Logroño Montecorvo Eco City will sit on a large 56-hectare site that spans two hills, Montecorvo and La Fonsalada. The development will follow the contours of the hills, affording each of the 3,000 carbon neutral homes views of the city below without disfiguring the natural landscape. Logroño Montecorvo will also feature sport facilities, retail, restaurants, and both private and public gardens. A museum and viewing point hidden in the top of one of the hills will house a research and promotion center for renewable and energy-efficient technology. The structures will only occupy about 10% of the overall site.
The remainder of the property will be an eco-park that will include wind turbines at the crest of each hill and a tapestry of photovoltaic cells spanning the southern slopes is expected to generate 100% of the energy needed by the new eco city. Of the 388 million euros ($558 million) it will cost to build this project, 40 million euros ($56 million) will be invested in renewable energy technology. The onsite production of clean energy and quality and efficiency of construction will allow the Logroño Montecorvo Eco City to save an excess of around 6,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
With the completion of this eco city, Rioja marks its spot on the sustainable design world map and furthers Spain’s international rep as an energy-progressive nation.
+ MVRDV
+ GRAS
Via World Architecture News and Dezeen
this is just plain cool
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Very interesting.
While only 3000 homes won’t exactly make a ‘city’ by most people’s standards, it will be quite a community. I don’t think the green victory is so much in the development of this actual project but in the fact that we’ll be able to see exactly what such a sustainable community looks like, i.e. if it’s a beautiful urban landscape or an awful mess of green technology which overwhelms everything else.
Many proponents of tradition power generation point to us having to plaster wind trubines and solar cells over so much of our countryside that it will ruin the natural world. This project will show if there’s any truth in that and show just how such technology can blend into the landscape as opposed to overpowering it. Personally, I think it could be beautiful in itself – I saw the enormous wind farms of California recently and was immensely impressed with both the green aspect and the beauty of so many structures and blades cascading over the hillsides.
I’ll be very interested to see how this project turns out. It could be a wonderful example for developments around the globe.
Steve N. Lee
author of eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com
and suspense thriller ‘What if…?’
I am interested in finding someone or group or company really interested in spreading the ECO word throughout the Construction industry in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe. The aim is to join Northern European Eco groups to create a Europe wide ‘Specification Standard’. Northern Europe is seriously working on this right now.