We all know that tourism does not always coexist appropriately with sustainability or the environment and example of this, there are thousands of places around the world.
Tourists and inveterate travelers are increasingly aware of this problem and are demanding changes in the tourism concept to minimize its impact. and here is where architects, engineers, urban planners and designers are beginning to see new business opportunities, new projects, which, in addition, you can provide a "balance" between the mass tourism and nature.
Mexico is one of the most visited . A paradise for tourists, and the icing on the cake, is the area of Cancun , where every year they spend millions of tourists. Nature, Sun and beaches like Delfines, Caracol, etc, or the route of the Cenotes push proposals of activities in cancun for all tastes and moods where the tourist feels sheltered and leisure is multiple, but leaving an important ecological impact.
Aware of the problem, the architecture studio Stefano Boeri Architetti has proposed a quite interesting project, the Smart Forest City . The first forestry and smart city of Mexico that would be integrated into the zone of Cancun .
The goal of the Smart Forest City is to integrate innovation with environmental quality balancing the green spaces with buildings creating a city self-sufficient (See the Smart City concept here)
The city is conceived as a fully circular, self-sufficient in food and energy. surrounded by a ring of solar panels and agricultural fields that will be watered by the city's own wastewater.
The new city will be able to accommodate, on an area of 557 ha, 130,000 inhabitants , giving back to the nature a large area on which would have been built a commercial area.
400 hectares of green spaces with 7,500,000 plants (of 400 different species carefully chosen by Laura Gatti, botanist and landscaper) of which 260,000 will be trees.
With a ratio of 2.3 trees per inhabitant , and the rest made up of shrubs and bushes, the function of the Smart Forest City is
Another of the remarkable points of the project is the urban mobility . We have to think that, among tourists and residents of the Cancun area, there is high vehicle traffic in the area.
Although major companies operating in the area of car rental like America Car Rental, CarFlex Rent a Car, Enterprise, Hertz, Jet Van , etc, that make up a notable activity in car rental in cancun, are being raising awareness and introducing car rental electrical systems , there is still a lot to contribute.
This new city is conceived to have a cutting-edge and sustainable mobility system : MIC (Chain Mobility) has proposed a transportation system articulated that allows residents and visitors to leave their vehicles on the outskirts of town and rely solely on electric and semi-automatic internal mobility, achieving reduce emissions within the city to almost zero.
Water is considered a key element in the project: The wastewater produced in the city will be recycled and used for irrigation and agriculture. In At the entrance there will be a large reservoir where there is a tower of desalination, from there, it will be distributed by different channels to the city and, if needed, to the beltway agricultural fields.
This project represents a new challenge to address and do facing a more sustainable tourism at a time when they need to expand infrastructure at all scales.
How someone said… “yes we need to build more to grow, at least we should do it consistently and trying to respect the environment» . We do not know if this is the right way or the right direction, but for at least it is a way that begins to project a new urbanism and architecture more in accordance with the respect environment without fracturing the economy of an area.
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