by Xinhua writer Tu Yifan
RIYADH, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The principles of walkability and livability behind THE LINE, Saudi Arabia's revolutionary zero carbon city project, could be a blueprint for urban design, said Florian Lennert, head of mobility in NEOM, a planned Saudi city.
"We face the need of globalization to build new cities for 3 billion people for the next 30 to 40 years. There are places around the world that are thinking about city design, and THE LINE could be a blueprint," Lennert told Xinhua in a recent interview.
Lennert leads on all regional and urban mobility for NEOM, Saudi Arabia's 500-billion-U.S. dollar megacity in the northwest of the kingdom on the Red Sea.
Noting that NEOM is a site of natural beauty in terms of mountains, coral reefs and desert, Lennert mentioned a number of things that are driving an attempt to develop an urban plan for NEOM.
One of the key starting ambitions is to develop an urbanized area with touching as little of the ground and the land as possible to maintain both the landscape integrity and ecosystem and biodiversity, he said.
On Jan. 10, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled THE LINE, a revolutionary project in urban living at NEOM, and a direct response to some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity such as infrastructure, pollution, and traffic.
The proposed smart city will be home to a million residents with a length of 170 km belt of hyper-connected future communities, linking the coast of the Red Sea with the mountains and upper valleys of the northwest of Saudi Arabia, with zero cars, zero streets and zero carbon emission, the crown prince said at an event to launch the city.
Lennert said that the challenge is, within the wider arrange plan of NEOM, how to develop an urban quarter where people can essentially contain and orient the urban development to build out a city and allow for its future growth.
This is a project not just for the next 10 years, but for more. "If you build a city, you have to think in a long-time frame," he added.
Questioned the design philosophy behind THE LINE, Lennert said "we want to develop an urban design that is people-centric and provides livable spaces, which gives you the idea of creating communities where you are essentially always within walking or cycling distance to your daily needs."
Some of the principles that underpin the project are "walkability, livability, having core public transport access, bringing nature into the city, finding balance between the urbanization and density of the urban space, and the access to core networks," Lennert said.
"They apply to all cities in the world. If the city is new, you can integrate it in the new design, and if it is old, you can think about how you can spatially transform your city in an organic way," he added.
Speaking of the development of Chinese cities, Lennert said that China has shown the world already what it means to build out infrastructure. "I think everyone is greatly admiring both the way and the speed China has built its national transportation network."
The world has also been hugely impressed by the process of urbanization in China, he said, adding China is now investing heavily in creating the multimodal transportation to avoid the congestion.
"China is already at the forefront of understanding what the current phase of urbanization needs," Lennert said, also commending China for its advances in establishing green and renewable energy strategies. Enditem