Baoji is an industrial town in the centre of China, about 150 km west of the former Chinese capital Xi'an. The city is situated on the old Silk Road and is still today an important transfer node for the northwest of China. Until now the development of the city, consisting of roughly 3,7 million inhabitants, was geographically constrained by a riverbed and mountain range to the south an elevated plane to the north.

The new development will be the first step to develop the elevated plane located about 200 meters above the existing city. This meant that there were major challenges regarding transportation as well as logistical issues that we had to solve.
Our goal was to propose a plan that showed the possibilities of establishing a CO2-neutral city for 300.000 to 400.000 inhabitants. The original brief was to create a completely new city on the seemingly 'empty' green elevated plain.

After a detailed research of the existing conditions we realized that the plain actually was far from a 'tabula rasa' and actually consisted of a networked system of villages and culturally important sites like graveyards and temples. We therefore decided to take this existing system as a starting point for the development of several different city quarters. Each of the villages formed the centre of a future city quarter, thus creating identity and authenticity for the new development while at the same time respecting and preserving valuable historic heritage and the distinctive features of the beautiful existing landscape.

The study for the 'Dragon-City-Baoji' explores state-of-the-art technical possibilities to provide 100% renewable energy for its inhabitants. The design creates a positive energy balance and feeds surplus energy back into the existing net. According to calculations, this makes it possible to achieve the desired CO2 neutrality, including – quite remarkably – the grey energy required to build the city.

The study was accepted by the Baoji Rural and Urban Construction and Planning Bureau and is serving as a basis for further planning activities by the bureau.

Baoji in Wikipedia

visit Baoji on Google Earth