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Table of Contents: Page No:

Introduction 1

Investigation, Guidelines and Issues of a City 2 - 4

Investigation & Data CollectionAncient/Old City

5 - 8Present City

8 - 10Future City

10 - 14The New “X” Town: Al – Khair City 15

- 24Conclusion

25References

26



I. Introduction

This final project in module Elements in Natural and Built Environments

(ENBE) is for us to create on a full new city which is sustainable and liveable to

human creatures and any other living things. Before coming to a final proposal to a

city plan, we have to find out on the cities and towns which are ancient, present and

as well on the features and aspects of a future city.

For us to plan our future city, there must be a research on previous and

present cities that is on their Road System, Mode of Transportation, Safety and

Security, the City Centre, Residential Areas, Commercial Areas, Industrial Areas and

Educational Areas

We had to choose in between different kind of city like the underground,

underwater, skyscraper, floating and near the sea or next to the river. So I and my

group members chose the Floating City. As the mayor of the city, I have to propose a

more innovative, ultramodern and hi-tech city based on how the previous cities were

and how they can be improved in my city.



II. Investigation, guidelines and issues of a city

What is a City all about?

A city is somewhat a large and everlasting human settlement. It’s a centre of

population, commerce and culture. It holds more importance than a town or a village

as it is where you will find many people around every day as it has everything. It’s a

place where people live, work, make shopping, trades etc. It has its own economy

and a complex system for residential areas, land usages, sanitations, waste

management and transportation.

Brief History of a City

A city is a form for central places of trade for the benefit of the members living

in close proximity to others facilitates interaction of all kinds. These interactions

generate both positive and negative externalities between others' actions. Benefits

include reduced transport costs, exchange of ideas, sharing of natural resources,

large local markets, and later in their development, amenities such as running water

and sewage disposal.



Possible costs would include higher rate of crime, higher mortality rates,

higher cost of living, worse pollution, traffic and high commuting times. Cities grow

when the benefits of proximity between people and firms are higher than the cost.

The building of cities has a long and complex history. Although city planning as

an organized profession has existed for less than a century, all cities display various

degrees of forethought and conscious design in their layout and functioning.

What makes a City?

A city is a place where the government provides all the facilities, basic

services, necessities and infrastructures to the people that are living and working in

it. Like for example electricity, water, food supplies, housing areas, open spaces,

public transportation and appropriate roads etc….

What makes it a Great City?

A great city is all about having its own way of providing the facilities and

services that is, in an eco-friendly manner and its own sustainability. And as well it

must be easy to maintain the city in the long run.

The requirements that need to be incorporated are to:

Practice the Reduce, Re-use and Recycle

Lakes or Dams to provide water in the city

Solar Panel Systems to deliver electricity around the city

Mode of transportation that can reduce traffic jams, lateness in

the morning, etc…

Fully equipped facilities such as more green spaces like garden,

parks etc…



A good tourism areas that will attract overseas people

Businesses, trades and job opportunities for the newly graduated

students

Educational areas such as school, libraries, 24/7 study etc…

How a future city will look like?

Thinking of a future city is not everyone’s cup of tea. Because you have to

think out of the box where you will find ideas that will help the city be more

sustainable and eco-friendly. Some might be thinking a city of only machines that will

work for everyone, such as robots, car moving on its own, etc… but some will think

on how to do the Power Solar Systems, how to backup and reuse waste water or rain

water as well, how to reduce air pollution.

So, if you are thinking that future city is that later people will find a large piece

of land and will amend it according to how a future city is to be, then you are highly

mistaken as the present cities it have already started in converting into green cities.

Like for example, Dubai from the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) which is the

showcase cities of the Emirates, often seem like it is run by a sci-fi chamber of

commerce. He got the world’s tallest building, the biggest new art collections in

starchitect-designed museums, the busiest airports, and growing populations.

Beneath that surface, though, lies a structure that worries even many supporters:



Freedoms are tightly constrained, and most of the population is made of explicitly

second-class noncitizens.

III. Investigation & data collection:

Ancient/Old City: Damascus

Damascus is considered to be the oldest city as well as the oldest capital in

the world. It’s dominated to the west by Mount Qasiyun and bounded to the east by

the desert. It was founded 1700 B.C. with the name of Palmyra, in an oasis which

were very fertile thanks to the river of Barada, a meeting place for cultures and

caravans. It is the capital of Syria and homes of about over 2.6 million people.



Damascus City

The recent civil uprisings have unfortunately caused a great deal of damage to

one of history’s most significant and oldest cities. It has been named in the top 12

cultural heritage sites most in danger of being destroyed or suffering irreparable loss.

Only time will tell whether this ancient city will survive or be relegated to history as

another ancient city lost to the world.

Water and natural features have determined the site and role of Damascus.

Early settlers were certainly enticed to a place where there is a river, the Barada,

rising in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains which watered a large and fertile oasis before



fading into the desert. This has supported a significant population for thousands of

years. Damascus itself grew on a terrace 2,250 feet (690 metres) above sea level,

south of Mount Qasiyun and overlooking the Barada River. City and oasis grew

together, and over time Damascus came to dominate the lesser rural settlements

surrounding it.

The natural endowments of a solid water supply and fertile land made

Damascus self-sufficient. Successive colonizers from the 2nd millennium B.C.E.

onward established a complex irrigation system that fed the city over a system of

branches derived from the river. Damascus’s position on the edge of the desert and

at the eastern end of the easiest route through the Anti-Lebanon Range made it a

trade centre where caravan routes originated and terminated. Since the coming on of

Islam, the city has also been the starting point of the northern pilgrimage road, the

Darb Al-Hajj Al-Shami, to the Islamic holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.



Present Zoning of Damascus

City layout

Damascus was an active commercial centre in the 2nd millennium B.C.E and

developed through different stages of urbanization thereafter, reaching its zenith at

the beginning of the 7th century C.E. when it became the capital of the Umayyad

Empire. The heart of Damascus’s Old City, which contains most of the city’s historical

monuments, is Hellenistic in origin, with significant Roman additions and

modifications. It is a rough oblong about 5,000 feet (1,500 metres) long and 3,300

feet (1,000 metres) wide and is defined by historic walls, of which sizeable stretches

still stand, especially in the north and west. It occupies the former location of the

main east-west thoroughfare of the Classical city, which lies some 15 feet (5 metres)

below the modern street level; no main north-south thoroughfare has been positively

identified. Many secondary streets and some of the most prominent features of the

Old City owe their positions to the Roman city planners of the 2nd and 3rd centuries

C.E.

The city’s orthogonal plan deteriorated during the late Byzantine period in the

6th and 7th centuries. The Umayyads chose Damascus as their capital but did not

much change its layout or considerably expand beyond its walls. Although the city

was neglected and its population drastically decreased between the 8th and 11th

centuries, by the 13th century Damascus had revived and was outgrowing its walls.

Two axes of development extra-muros, beyond the city walls, predominated. One

linked the city to the northwest with the suburb of Salhiyyah, which was established

in the 12th century by immigrants from Jerusalem on the slopes of Mount Qasiyun;

the second extended as a long, narrow strip southward along the road leading to the

Hawran and Palestine. The Old City was designated by UNESCO World Heritage site

in 1979.



The Present City: New York City

New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the centre of

the New York metropolitan area, the premier gateway for legal immigration to the

United States and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New

York exerts a significant impact on commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research,

technology, education, and entertainment. It covers an area of about 1,214 km2 and

has a population of around 8.4 million people.



New York City

The New York City was founded around 1624. The first attempt to settle came

in 1624, when a group of settlers were sent by the Dutch West India Company. Most

of them proceeded upriver to the present site of Albany, but eight men remained on

Manhattan and were joined the following year by 45 more settlers. Fort Amsterdam

was built to protect the little colony.

In 1626, Peter Minuit, the third governor, was instructed to settle the

ownership of Manhattan with the Indians. He named the town New Amsterdam.

Under the later administration of Peter Stuyvesant, the colony prospered, and by the

1650’s, about 1,000 were living in New Amsterdam. In 1653, the year that New

Amsterdam was incorporated as a city, Stuyvesant built a wooden palisade where

Wall Street is today, to mark the northern city limits.



New York continued to grow with around 7,000 inhabitants in the year 1,700.

The first newspaper was published in 1725. In 1775, a public safety committee took

over the governance of New York. By the 1850 census, after many wars and conflicts

in the country, New York City had the largest population of any city in America at

515,394. Of these, more than half were foreign-born. New York was the chief port of

entry for immigrants into the country, with 370,000 arriving in 1850 alone. Many of

these moved farther west but many others stayed. The population continued to

increase, most large American cities in the North have experienced declines in

population, but New York has been an exception. After peaking at 7,895,563 in the

census of 1970, the city lost a reported 823,924 residents in the next ten years. The

city then began a recovery, with a quarter million more people in 1990 and a record,

for New York or any other American city, of 8,008,278 in the 2000 census.

A Future City: Dubai (U.A.E.)

Dubai is the most crowded city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the

second largest emirate by territorial size after the capital, Abu Dhabi. Dubai is located

on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf and is one of the seven emirates that

make up the country. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are the only two emirates to have veto

power over critical matters of national importance in the country's legislature. It

covers an area of 4,114 km2 and has a population of around 2.1 million people.



Dubai City

The land of Dubai was all covered with sand that is, it was a desert place.

Then the first human settlement in the history of Dubai was in approximately 3000

B.C, when the area was inhabited by nomadic cattle herders. In the 3rd century A.D,

the area came under the control of the Sassanid Empire which lasted until the 7th

century, when the Umayyad Caliphate took control and introduced Islam to the area.

It was sustained by fishing and pearl diving for a thousand years, with the first

records of the town being made in 1799 when the Bani Yas clan established it as a

dependency of Abu Dhabi.

Dubai is a city that has evolved very quickly in a very small lapse of time.

There was a time when the city was flat, just a desert where nothing could be done

nor anyone could survive, suddenly it started developing in a very fast speed that

today you can see many buildings and other things that cannot be seen in any other

cities that was developed well before this one.



Nowadays, Dubai is well known for its beauty in its building, the country in

itself, the Gold Souk and the fast development that has been happening and is still

going on. And now Dubai has many elements that makes it looks like a future city, it

has so many skyscrapers, floating areas, underwater areas also, next to river and

sea as well.

Let’s say like for instance, Dubai has the longest building in the world which is

named as the “Burj Al-Khalifah” measuring around 828 metres. It’s almost termed as

a city in the air as in the building it got many residential apartments, a luxurious hotel,

shopping complex, it also has a mosque which is the highest mosque in the world.

Meaning that it consist of almost everything that a city needs apart an industrial area.

As for floating, it has Palm Tree Design land where it has a big hotel and many

houses for the very rich people and now recently they have decided to make another

floating city that will look like the earth in design, each small island will represent a

country its zoning have all been decided.



Regarding the underwater, they don’t have a city, a town, a village or a big

piece of land but instead they have a restaurant that is underwater, while you are

having your lunch or dinner you can see the whales and fishes passing on your head.

And also they have hotel rooms that are underwater.

The new and future floating city that they are going to build up will look like the

earth where each continent will be divided into small islands and each island will

represent a country. Here is a glimpse of how it’s going to look like:



Some of the great architecture in Dubai

The Atlantic Hotel on the Palm Jumeira (Left) and the Burj Al-Arab Hotel (Right)

Crescent Moon Tower (Left) and the Golden City (Right)



IV. The new “X” Town: Al-Khair City

Me, as the mayor of the new “X” City, I decided to name the city as “Al-Khair”

which is an Arabic word which means “Goodness”. Why is that, is because the city

will be of futuristic one which that will show to the country the goodness of helping in

making a green and an eco-friendly city.

ZONING OF THE CITY



City Zoning:Entrance & Exit: that is to get access to the floating city from the main

land through a bridge.

Safety & Security: consist of Hospital, Police Station, Fire Station,

Court, and Grand Hall.

City Centre: consist of Hypermarket, Gardens, Parks, Bus Station,

Banks, Bicycles and Motorcycles Rental Service to roam around in the City.

Educational Zone: consist of University, Schools, Hostels for Boys and

Girls separately and a big library which not only the students can get access to but

also the public in all.

Residential Zone: consist of Flats, Apartments, Houses, Bungalows,

and Small Shops where groceries, vegetables and fruits are sold for the residents so

that the people don’t have to go to the City Centre to buy stuffs each time.

Commercial Zone: consist of Shopping Malls, Hotels, Museums,

Sports Complex, Banks, Offices, and Theme Parks.

Industrial Zone: it is where the city will produce its own electricity, water,

agriculture etc…



Master Plan of Al-Khair City

The above plan shows how each zoning have been subdivided into particular parts.

In the design you must have seen that the design is very circular in shape.

This is because I wanted to bring the design to the form of several crescents

touching each other which makes a design, but while designing my city, I finally came

with this design which I myself find it difficult to believe that I draw that.

I just design it using the circles in another form, and here it appears my city in

such a beautiful design. If you avoid watching the pattern of the circles in the design,

but rather you see the design completely in all together, you will see and imagine

how it will look like when there will be the buildings on the city.



Transportation and Route System

The picture above shows the transportation system.

The dark green colour road is the Main Road which is also known as the

Highway and the light green colours are the small roads along the city which go in

between all the zoning.

The mode of transportation in the city will be boats, cars, motorcycles,

bicycles. In the city centre, we also have a rental for bicycle and motorcycles for

those coming by bus if they want to ride a bicycle or motorcycle to go around the city

according to their convenience, so they just have to rent them per hours or per days.



Modern Mode of Transportation:

This is a type of transport that will be included in my future city, which is somehow like a bus called the TBS running faster than the cars. The system is that the sitting area is in the above whr it touches the ground only on the left and right side. That is it rides over the car.

That is how the wheels of the TBS look like.



That is the Indicator System, as well you get to see a glimpse in between of how it looks like.



Mode of generating power:

These are Power Solar Panels that are installed on a large piece of land to generate electricity or energy to a city or town.



There are kinds of Power Solar System for a single house.

A single family can have their own source of energy that is the Solar Panels that generate energy only for their home. But if ever they are having more energy than needed per day or per month, they can sell it to the Electricity Board.



Mode of recycle and reuse water:

Dams or reservoirs can be constructed to keep rain water so as to service the water to a city or town.



If a family wishes to reuse their waste water and save the country they can have a small dam in their garden constructed and have the filter arranged together.



Conclusion:

In all the research that I have done for the report, I may conclude that the previous cities were great and had good architects enough to be having such nice building even though they didn’t had materials that we have today and also the facilities. Eventually, the way of constructing and the materials that have been used for the construction in previous years were different. In the present cities they used the materials that we all have today and now we have to look forward to build up green cities that will be sustainable on their own and provide much more better and best facilities to the people living on it.



References List:

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/manual/history.html

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/150420/Damascus/276645/Climate

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/150420/Damascus#toc276643

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2122.html

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/12/01/dubai-future-cities/5WcREp0dk9GenHEFPzpsqO/story.html

http://www.dubai.com/v/history/

http://www.emirates.com/english/destinations_offers/discoverdubai/aboutdubai/dubaihistory.aspx

http://www.pylo.si/news/tbs-transportation-future

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/solar-power-profile/




http://www.pylo.si/news/tbs-transportation-future



http://www.dubai.com/v/history/



http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2122.html





http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/manual/history.html