Beijing New Smart City Explored

26/04/2019

An Aerial View of Tongzhou and the Grand Canal. Image: Beijing Daily

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The historic town of Tongzhou, located in the eastern suburbs of Beijing, is currently under great transformation with massive new town development. As Beijing's sub-centre, the town aims to host the city's local government administrations separate from those of the national capital. The move is considered as a strategy to address increasing urban issues and apply smart city solutions. Last month, I visited the new town government and its planners, to explore the new approaches and see if they are meeting with success?

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Overview

A Historical Map of Tongzhou in 1926. Image:University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Tongzhou Pagoda. Image: BWPI

​Tongzhou, an historic town was founded in 195 BC during the Western Han Dynasty, and is rich in culture and heritage. The landmark in Tongzhou, Burning Lamp Buddhist Relic Pagoda (Tongzhou Pagoda) was built more than 1400 years ago during the Dynasty of Northern Zhou. Throughout the history, the pagoda has been rebuilt several times due to earthquakes and man-made disasters.

A Photo took in the 1920s shows the drum tower in Tongzhou. Image: Beijing Daily

Tongzhou is also located at the starting point of UNESCO World Heritage Site "Grand Canal". As the world's longest and oldest man-made waterway, the canal began its construction in 486 BC, and it runs an entire 1,794km north from Hangzhou to Tongzhou. Tongzhou was initially named as Lu County, and renamed Tongzhou (meaning 'the place for passing through') in the Jin dynasty for recognising it as the land and water gateway to Beijing. 

Spatial Structural of Tongzhou New Town. Image: Beijing Subcentre Regulatory Detailed Planning (Block Level) (2016-2035)

Now the new development of Tongzhou is once again positioned as an important sub-centre of Beijing. According to the plan document, the new town is expected to play a role for providing world-class liveability, promoting new-type urbanisation and the coordinated development of Beijing,Tianjin and Hebei. The master-plan maps out a spatial layout of one belt (Grand Canal ecological belt), one axis (the central developmental axis) and multiple zones.

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Transport and Utility System 

Proposed Beijing Metro Plan by 2022, circled area is Tongzhou. Image: Wikicommons

​Two new rail transit lines, including the extension of metro line7 and Batong line, are planned to open in the city this year and construction will start on two more metro lines (line 3 and the extension of line 17). A high speed rail line named 'Beijing City Railway Sub-center Line' is also operating between Bejing centre and Tongzhou New Town.

The new sub-centre is equipped with the world's "smartest" underground pipelines, providing safer and more efficient public utility networks. Image:CGTN

An underground looped tunnel has just completed in Tongzhou and is scheduled to open in October this year. The opening of the tunnel is expected to provide people multi-level accesses to the underground space. 

Image: BWPI

At the first level, the tunnel is designed for the vehicle expressways to remove cars from the surface level and provide a 500 square meter car free space.

​​The second level provides the space for ventilation and electrical equipments, while the third level is working as utility tunnels that carry water, electricity, telecommunications, TV cables as well as heating and pneumatic waste conveyance system. 

​Furthermore, this tunnel is managed to provide a smart solution for monitoring and controlling traffic, minimising air pollution inside the tunnel. In the case of traffic jam, the signal lights will be adjusted to reduce the congestion, and an electromagnetic adsorption device will be able to remove more than 72 percent of PM2.5 particles from the exhausted gas of vehicles.

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Water and Greenery  

Tongzhou Grand Canal Forest Park. Image:BWPI

Five Types of Waterfront Open Space. Image: Beijing Subcentre Regulatory Detailed Planning (Block Level) (2016-2035)

​Tongzhou is rich in its water resources. The Grand Canal Forest Park with the design of "invokes the spirit of water in a body of green" is now shaping the heart of the new town. Additionally, it aims to build a National Forest City which will increase the district forest coverage from current 28 percent to 40 percent by 2035. 

Tongzhou Open Green Space Map. Image: Beijing Subcentre Regulatory Detailed Planning (Block Level) (2016-2035)

​To meet the target, Tongzhou government intends to build 8 ecological recreation greenways with a total length of 112.1 kilometers. 80 kilometers of them are already complete last year, according to the government source. By 2035, the waterfront and road greening coverage rate will reach about 80 percent.

Permeable Pavement in Tongzhou. Image: sohu.com

​The construction of urban greening is also integrated with the city's vision to build a 'sponge city'. In order to provide flood protection and climate change resilience, green belt, rainwater gardens, permeable paving, rainwater harvesting, and detention ponds have been utilised. The water optimisation has covered all of the residential communities, parks, public buildings, municipal roads and watercourses. By estimation, 70 percent of the rainwater in Tongzhou can be absorbed after transformation. 

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Tourism

Rendering of the Universal Studio Beijing. Image: universalbeijingresort.com

The new area of Tongzhou will also be developed as a culture and tourism area. In addition to the historical heritages, one of the famous theme park, Universal Studio is expected to be built by 2021. Upon the opening, public can enjoy all its recreation facilities like boat ride, the carousel, and roller coaster in the largest Universal Studios outlet in Asia.

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Relocation of Government Bodies

The New Office Building of Beijing's Municipal Government. Image:Beijing Daily

Graphics: BWPI Source: Beijing Tongzhou Statistical Yearbook (2009-2018)

Numbers of government bodies have already moved to the Tongzhou subsidiary administrative centre early this year and 400 thousand to 500 thousand people are expected to be relocated to the new area by 2035.

Cityförster to Lead Design of New Beijing Government District. Image: Cityförster

​While the government decided that the new area development will not be driven by large scale real estate projects. The government will control the amount of land use for construction at about 100 square kilometres which limits the population density below 9000 people per square km by 2035.

Landscaping Planning Design Proposal of Administrative Office Area in Beijing Subcenter. Image: Cityförster.

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Barry Wilson meets Tongzhou planning officials for idea sharing. Image: Image: China ASC

From left to right:

Cai Yongjie, Head of Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University

​Spencer de Grey, Head of Design, Foster + Partners

Zhu Wenyi, Dean of School of Architecture, Tsinghua University
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Li Xuehua, Director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Urban Design

Barry Wilson, Vice President of the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design

Shi Wenchian, Partner of MVRDV and Director MVRDV Asian Studio​

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