PM Network - March 2015

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.