Future Taihu

Future Taihu was a speculative urban design and regional planning research project undertaken in partnership with the Dynamic Cities Foundation in China. The project explores a speculative proposal for the future of the Lake Taihu in China. The area of investigation is a 100km2 region centred on Lake Taihu with 7 major cities and a population of more than 20 million. With the growth of networked urban mega clusters, such as the Greater Bay Area and Yangtze River Delta, it is essential to develop a model of rapid urbanisation that moves beyond a self-contained nodal understanding to a sharing model of urban integration. As mono-centric cities rapidly morph to form multi-nodal systems, what are the planning models that can be applied to facilitate integrated development? The project proposes a new model of metropolis in which multiple cities are networked together around the periphery of the Lake Taihu. By dramatically limiting the land available for urbanization, and creating a no build zone of reforested land around the city, we have created a hypothetical scenario in which growth is limited to hyperdense band that spans urban cores. The project was exhibited at the 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism.

Project Team: Neville Mars, John Doyle.