Planning eco-cities, the case of Huai Rou New Town

Urban design has a tremendous impact on urban energy consumption, because of its strong influence on buildings and transport sectors. Guidelines for low energy – low emission urban design are based on different strategies aimed to minimize energy demand and energy wastes, to improve urban metabolism by recycling energy and materials and to substitute fossil fuels with renewable energy. At urban scale, energy demand can be minimized by optimizing shape, orientation and distances between buildings in order to control solar radiation and the effect of winds; at the same time the heat island effect, and the consequent energy demand for cooling, must be reduced by emphasizing the use of green areas and making use of appropriate surface materials. In this contest, a new methodology has been developed and applied to a case study regarding a project that took place in the framework of a collaboration and knowledge transfer between Italy and China. This research is related to the energy planning of Houi Rou, a new town near Beijing that will host about 80 thousand people with more than 3,5 million of m2 distributed by residences, commercial buildings and parking. Huai Rou New Town is an example of the concrete possibility, with today’s technologies and in a context of cost-effectiveness, to design a fully renewable energy supplied with very small energy footprint and greenhouse emissions settlement.