China – Architects Guallart are envisaging a self-sufficient future city that can adapt to meet the needs of health crises.
Having been selected as the winning design in an architectural competition for the Chinese city of Xiong'an, the development positions itself as ‘Covid-proof’, citing the virus as an accelerator for new types of ecological and urban living.
Designed to be entirely self-sufficient and able to withstand future illness outbreaks or lockdowns, the apartments have their own internal energy systems, verdant balconies, terraces for drone deliveries, co-working spaces, vegetable gardens and food markets. Guallart hopes the concept will provide ‘a new standard in the post-Covid era’ for future cities.
‘We cannot continue designing cities and buildings as if nothing had happened,’ explains lead architect Vicente Guallart. 'Our proposal stems from the need to provide solutions to the various crises that are taking place on our planet at the same time, in order to create a new urban life based on the circular bio-economy that will empower cities and communities.’
With international lockdowns revealing inadequacies across global housing stock and interior fit-outs, Guallart demonstrates how Pandemic-proof Properties could soon become the norm.
