In the days when the environment is suffering increased degradation, the news of a completely eco-friendly city being planned to be built indeed comes as a welcome news. The project under consideration is Zorlu Ecocity in Istanbul, Turkey. Zorlu Ecocity, a Llewelyn Davies Yeang project, has been planned as a ‘city within a city’. The project adheres to the original planning strategies of Istanbul of relieving the pressure on the city’s core by developing more urban centers in the entire Marma region. Zorlu Ecocity has been designed as a mixed-use development project, and would be located at the southern extremity of Buyukdere Street in Istanbul. This innovative and eco-friendly ‘city within a city’ would have office towers, residential towers, apartments, two hotels and resort-like elderly units over a three-storey retail complex. The total accommodating capacity of the Zorlu Ecocity would be 588,850 sm (6,338,329 sf) and will house a total of 14 towers, having 8 to 26 storeys. The city would also have a seven-storey deep basement, providing space for six thousand cars. Mass transportation facilities will be readily made available at Zorlu Ecocity, so that people would not really feel the need of their own cars. In fact, the concept and plan of this ‘green’ city seems to suggest that, private cars would indeed become an exception on the roads. The director of Llewelyn Davies Yeang and noted bioclimatic skyscraper design expert,Ken Yeang, will speak on the Zorlu Ecocity project at the Ecocity World Summit, to be held on 24-26 April, at San Francisco,California. The conference is expected to throw some more light on this truly innovative project. Zorlu Ecocity, with its eco-friendly nature, unique planning, and abundance of greenery and open space, surely has the potential to become a nice, peaceful and attractive ‘city within a city’ in future. Source: Jetson Green
