Project Plan

1. Summary (will be written after everything else is done)
2. Background
3. Beneficiaries (target groups) and other stakeholders

Beneficiaries in using wetlands

The nature in present Taipei has been almost forgotten. Yet in the past there has been high connection with the river. Therefore instead of thinking only economical beneficiaries, the build Guandu will give benefit also to both the nature and the normal people.

The basic and easy to address beneficiaries are landowners who have also been working as driving force for the project. Their benefit can be thought as purely economical. Also the city government gains economical benefit since the building process supplies work for years now-on.

The people of whole Taipei shall have benefit. Guandu area shall be built as an example for how to live with the connection to nature – sanctuary for people, not only animals.

4. Objectives and indicators
In city of Taipei there are several problems those are influencing to quality of life. One is the heavily polluted river another is the floods. This project is set to its grand goal to improve quality of life of all citizens of the Taipei not only develop Guandu area to be a sustainable city inside the polluted Taipei.

Of course this project cannot demolish nor change industry on upstream or typhoon cycle. Our goal is set to influence attitudes of Taipei citizens and shareholders. Even this sounds romantic idea, but city is a system formed by actors in the area, whose aim is not lower quality of life, contrary higher it, by building up prosperous businesses and projects. These actors are citizens but also for example businesses, landowners, universities and organizations.

Industrialization changed attitudes about nature. Nature have been seen as pool of resources that seem to be endless. (papanek, McDonough & Braungart 2002). This role of nature is changing in our minds, but very few examples are known. Guandu would be one example of urban in symbiosis with nature.

Taipei is built between mountains and river. Typhoons and storms are causing pressure against urban areas. Flood is damaging the city and running it to chaos (too heavy expression?) and rain waters from mountain is doing the same even inside the flood walls. It is easy to understand a fear of nature’s phenomenon and try to seal the nature out of the city. Researchers have been shown the value of nature in urban areas. Growing elements are increasing life quality and satisfaction among urban community. (McDonough & Braungart 2002, some other sources?) Our roots are among nature. Guandu area is an example of way of living in symbioses with the nature, even in times of floods and earthquakes.

As mentioned before there are two major goals which answer is working Green city of Guandu. Green city in this project means as self-sufficient area as it can be: inputs of energy food and water and outputs of waste and sewage. Another sublevel goal is chief personal connection to circulation of resources in the nature by participating and observation a growing process and nature’s waste management: waste equals food. (McDonough & Braungart 2002). Third sublevel goal is provide connection to clean river to rose it’s value.

Under goal of the Green city, there are goals that are set to any urban design project, questions about transportation: material and human flow, security issues, community function and services needed. There are also big question about business situated to this area as well as profile or brand of the area.

Globally eco-cities are coming, for an example in Tianjin. Concept of eco-city is developing. It is struggle between old values like consuming and easy life and new values for example circulation of materials and giving up for personal owning. Green city of Guandu is providing easy living. a Short step from modern living to more sustainable one. It is phase to utopian living in harmony with nature where there is no space for individual owning and collecting of goods, where cities are not consuming but producing welfare to people, society and nature.

Easy step from postmodern living to future is the key to Guandu’s Green city to be success. It is a laboratory of sustainable living and learning from surrounding nature and its processes. If you don’t know how to care your peach tree gardener is provided. If you cannot give up your car there is place to park it, but when you are ready to grow your tomatoes you may do it and eventually the parking house can be tear down to be a playground or another garden.

This project has strong will to support a sustainable future. Project is considering approximately fifty years to future even building project itself is ten to fifteen years. Design is based to fact that built environment repair and rebuilt cycle is about fifty to hundred years. During this period built infrastructure should be fulfil all needs of the actors. Needs of future cannot be known, but flexible infrastructure adapts needs as well as it is possible.

Project includes many areas of research and business. As new as eco-city building is there are many research and done projects where to learn from. Many questions are still open and also globally Guandu Green city is a laboratory of those studies and so it combines valuable knowledge capitals to serve the project, Guandus habitants, Taipei and Taiwan. It produces more knowledge that is base of a new green technology of our future.

goals and indicator table

5. The Design

(Lasse's maps)

# floodplains: area under water during floods
# mangrove reserve: santuary for birds and natural floodwall
# arsenic field: heavily polluted area. Goal is clean the land. One possible technologies to do it could be "Pump and Treat": a common method for cleaning up groundwater. Pumps are used to bring polluted groundwater to the surface where it can be cleaned up (treated) more easily.
Another solution using an in-situ Permeable Reactive Barrier (PRB)to immobilize soluble arsenic: the contaminated groundwater passes through the PRB where arsenic react with Zero Valent Iron.
Temporary solution is cover the area with a concrete plate, solar panels and system for collecting water.
# incinerator: there are working incinerator burning trashes. Filtering system must be added. Incinerator is producing heating energy to the Guandu area.
# hidden highway: highway crossing the plain is moved to next to a channel (6). Highway is in channel below ground level sided by earth walls. Channel is also blocking ground water flow from arsenic field.
# Channel: biological water cleaning system. The channel is spliting river into two. New stream is a serie of channels and reservoirs to clean the river water and sewer waters produced in Guandu area.
# Delta city (see further explanations)
# Hillside (see further explanations)
# Floating homes (see further explanations)
# sky train:light train system to connect the new areas to metro system. Over 10m above ground to operate also during the floods. Joint station to main parking area. (location still open)
# commercial area: to create local center with all sevices neeted in Guandu. Covered area between hills.
# techopolis: area for small industry, research and green tech.
# hillside II: check hillside (8)



5a. The Houses of Guandu

The houses of Guandu are intelligent; passive in their energy and resource use, active in their symbiotic relationship with their inhabitants. They are highly flexible, allowing the people to make their own spaces inside the building shell. Their green gardens are the lungs of each building and produce fruit and vegetables for the inhabitants and to the local community market.


HOUSE TYPES

Floating houses



Floating houses are villages of houses, situated next to the river, that are built on piles and floating platforms. They rise and descend according to the heights of the rivers.

Delta city



The tall buildings of the delta city are connected to each other with footbridges and with a floating plane. There are terraces in each apartment for . There are fish growing tanks, stream energy collective, wind turbines and water collective system. The houses are cooled with river water.

Hillside






Hillside is a series of constructed hills, inside which people dwell in modern-day “hobbitons”. The garden in front of each dwelling can be used flexibly for any purposes. This ensures place for small scale enterprises


THE GUANDU LOOP: (even possible name?)

Cycles – circulation – human empowerment -> sustainability
The inhabitants will see the natural cycles and participate in them.


GARDENS will be part of the building. They will provide vegetables, herbs and fruits for the inhabitants and help clean the air. The building will also change colour by the seasons through the leaves of the fruit trees. The fallen leaves also help with the shading needs that are less during the winter months. The gardens also extend to the roofs of the buildings, providing the city with a better climate by avoiding the “heat island” effect of the cities.

80% of the fruits consumed in Havana are produced locally. The goal is that 100% of the fruits that are consumed in Guandu are produced locally.


GREEN ENERGY FOR THE HOUSES

Sustainability will be achieved through small scale solutions and community empowerment. The sustainability solutions are visible and will help people to connect with nature again

Solar power: the arsenic field, while being cleaned, is turned into a field of solar panels
Wind power: new low-sound wind farms on roofs of the buildings and in people’s gardens
Green roofs & gardens: will have a positive impact on the micro climate of Taipei as they do not produce the so called heat islands common in concrete jungles.
Water wise: green roof and filter system collects and cleans rainwater that is then used for toilets in the buildings. The solar panel area is used to collect rainwater for gardens and recycling.
Urban agriculture: urban gardens on terraces and in the urban farm will provide vegetables and fruit for the inhabitants and clean the air
Urban aquaculture: fish are produced in small channels with a system that helps to clean the sewage water.
Biomass production: lower levels of the floodplains and terraces will be used to produce biomass, which then will be burnt in the incinerator for energy
Heating & Cooling: heating and cooling will be achieved by pumping river water
Waste-to-energy: all waste is recycled, composted, fertilised or reused for energy (in the incinerator)


Green and Vibrant Community

A green community empowers its people to make it sustainable environmentally, economically and socially.

Inhabitants will be able to produce their own vegetables and fruits in the garden. The produce will then be first traded in community exchange. The surplus is sold in community markets.

New social hubs:

MARKET
A Market is located in each village to provide ways to sell the surpluses the crops of the urban farms. It is also a social hub with organised events such as night markets with music, food and wine during summer nights, both for locals and visitors alike.

CREATIVE SPACES
Local and Taipei artists are provided with affordable studio spaces. The studio spaces come with an art gallery for changing exhibitions. An art school operates for young children of the area. Theatre groups and spaces will be formed.

MEETING PLACES
Each housing unit has a meeting space where communal lounge rooms, internet facilities, swapping places are located.


URBAN VILLAGES

The house types will form urban communities of about XXX inhabitants each, the traditional number of inhabitants in a village (LÄHDE). Each community has a community house or space, where communal kitchens, social rooms and laundry facilities are located.

The neighbouring urban communities form urban villages where everyday services such as a grocery store, a kindergarten and a school are located, within an easy walking distance from each community and housing unit.



About Using Wetlands

Ecohydraulics in common

Ecohydraulics is a concept of river engineering and restoration. It aimes to balance the structural and functional behaviour of a river as a ecosystem and create ecological diversity. The idea of ecohydraulics is to study the river as a unity and therefore the stream itself, the floodplain and the catchment area can not be separated. (SYKE, 2003.) The Guandu area is situated in the very lowstream of the river Danshui. Therefore the area has to be thought as a example. By creating a separate stream and using biological watercleaning systems, the area will work as an example that will flow upstream the river: a floodplain for benefit of both the people and the nature. In the stream area are used modern, yet natural means to clean the water by wetlands.

Wetlands for wastewater treatment

Constructed wetlands are natural treatment systems to stabilize wastewater without any help of mechanical or energy-consuming equipments. Constructed wetlands can be either free water surface systems. The wetlands effect very highly on reducing of biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids and nitrogen, but it also has effect on reducing the concentration of metals and pathogens. The definite advantages of a constructed wetland are that it is very simple operated and needs only a mere action of maintenance. (Polpraset, 2004.) In Japan has been constructed many succesfull wetlands. In average the reduction of total phosporus has been about 40%, of total nitrogen over 30% and of chemical and biological oxygen demand about 50%. (SYKE, 2004.) The plants used are fast growing, floating plants. In South East Asia, eg. in Vietnam and Thailand have been using lotus, water-mimosa and also chinese water spinach. These plants are fast growing and need to be harvested in order not overloading the system, and therefore it needs workforce; farming creates places of employment in local scale. (Costa-Pierce, 2005.) The harvested biomass can be used as compost materials improving the soil, or in Guandu area as a biofuel for the incinerator.

In addition to only using wetlands as a purification process, they can also been used as farms for urban aquaculture – fish farming. In allready build wetlands that are also used as aquaculture farms the results have been highly significant. Fishfarming has been an imprtant source for both nutrition – especially proteine – and employment. The locally produced food has also high importance in the whole community since the profit does not go the landowners. Compared to tradiotional paddy rice farming, the economic efficiency of various wastewater farming systems have are high. Even the wastewater based lotus farming has given a double income compared to rice farming, and the integrated systems with both plants and fishes are three times more profitable. (Costa-Pierce, 2005.)

All in all, by using all natural means, the results leads to a system that has various profits at a local and even larger level: cleaning water, food production, flood control, employment, environmental quality and recreation.

6. Results (Outputs)

7. Implementation strategy

The benefits of the wetlads have been introduced previously. The area is supposed to bring benefits for both the nature and the people. As an unique system in whole Taipei, the area should also be working as a scientific research center for universities locally and also globally. The constructions of the area are a grande effort and therefore also the construction phase is profitable for decades as creating local employment.

8. Work plan

The full practice of constructing wetlands have to be solved: the dynamics between the different parts and structure. The use of arsenic field have to be choosen: solar panel field etc.

More specific details about the soil is needed.

9. Means (Resources)

10. Budget

Construction of whole area will take decades. The effect on working power is efficient. Some kind of comparation can be taken from the Kamppi center area which is only 3 hectars.

-labour power needed in man-years: 4000
-estimated price: 400 million euros
-land moved away: 60 000 truckloads
-concrete used: 60 000 m^3
-time taken: 4,5 years

11. Organisation and project management
12. Monitoring, evaluation and reporting