Challenges of urbanisation in China
In China, more and more attention is being given to city planning in line with the principles of sustainable development and to competent industrial design. These two things go hand-in-hand, for it is important that, for example, a sewage treatment plant built for industrial needs should benefit the whole society.
China’s huge population of one billion people makes social planning along the lines of sustainable development all the more urgent. Sustainable development concentrates above all on the human aspect – how the built environment should be planned in order to achieve the greatest benefit to the well-being of people. The principle is clearly visible at the World Expo 2010 to be held in Shanghai under the motto “Better City, Better Life”.
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| The Finnish pavilion at Shanghai World Expo 2010 is called “Kirnu” (“Giant’s Kettle”). |
Metso will participate in the World Expo as an official partner of Finland’s Giant’s Kettle pavilion. The exposition gives Metso an excellent opportunity to promote itself as a supplier of modern environmental technologies which improve the quality of everyday life. Metso offers sustainable technological solutions for the mining and construction industries, infrastructure, recycling and energy production as well as the paper and packaging industries.
Metso’s industrial designer
Petteri Venetjoki took a close look at Chinese city planning and industrial design at Snowball, the Finnish-Chinese Design Industry event held in Shanghai last November which brought together Finnish design companies, designers and other parties with an interest in the Chinese markets and the Chinese design industry’s leading names and experts.
“Metso is in a good position to participate in the visionary work starting up in China because we have both the know-how and the processes needed for designing the built environment,” Venetjoki says.
Chinese urban planning has taken some interesting new steps. Chinese universities are developing new concepts on how to merge urban and rural environments and create urban structures on a smaller scale even in sparsely populated areas.
Another interesting issue of urban planning is the recycling of old urban structures. For example, the Shanghai World Expo showcases a pavilion which is based on an old power plant.
