Entirely new cities in China have not met he best of fates: Many have failed to attract businesses or residents. So more recent projects in the country have
focused on rebuilding existing cities—among them,
Karamay and Guangzhou.
Once a small town, Karamay experienced a
population boom after the discovery of oil there in
the 1950s. In 2010, the city opened a competition
to design a master plan that would accommodate
the expected population surge from 250,000 to 1
million by 2050. NBBJ, an architecture firm, won
with a plan focused on sustainable design and conservation, including solar and wind power, storm-water management and a central business district
surrounded by pedestrian-centered neighborhoods.
Launched in 2011, the project is on target for
a 2017 completion of all planned buildings—yet
it is not without challenges. “Karamay is in a
very remote area of China,” says Kim Norman
Way, principal, urban design and planning, NBBJ,
Columbus, Ohio, USA. For the international team,
that remote location meant three separate flights
each time it needed to reach Karamay, which was
“very taxing and wearing on the planning and
design team,” Mr. Way says.
A lack of strong, clear communication with local
clients and stakeholders has also proven problematic at times. The most challenging phase of
work, Mr. Way says, involved planning the city’s
university campus. “Our planning was directed by
city officials who did not yet have a clear understanding of the future academic programs for this
new university due to the unpredictability of the
region’s growth,” he says. To get past that challenge,
the project team used the city’s desired enrollment
numbers along with its own experience designing
universities.
Similar problems arose when planning the city’s
hospital. “The city’s vision for this new, contemporary, state-of-the-art hospital was greater than the
existing hospital staff could provide input on,” Mr.
Karamay and
Guangzhou, China
CASE STUDY / City on the Horizon
“Our planning was directed by city
officials who did not yet have a
clear understanding of the future
academic programs for this new
university.”
—Kim Norman Way, NBBJ, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Two views of
the Karamay
city plan
PH
OT
O
BY
A
NA
Y
M
AN
N
IM
A
G
ES
C
OU
RT
ESY
O
F
NBB
J