Dutch design practice UNStudio has created a new urban vision to create the world's smartest neighborhood in the Netherlands. Located in Helmond’s Brandevoort District, the project was imagined as a flexible grid that will be developed per users’ demand. Dubbed the Brainport Smart District, the project explores social cohesion and safety, health, data, new transport technologies and independent energy systems. The BSD is designed to be a living lab that embraces experimentation and ‘learning by doing’.
Brainport Smart District will develop 1,500 new homes and 12 hectares of business premises. The development centers on the latest technologies and knowledge in order to achieve a sustainable, circular and socially cohesive neighborhood around joint energy generation, food production, water management, joint digital data management and revolutionary transport systems. The mixed residential neighborhood will be organised around a central park and surrounded by business spaces and natural reserves.The landscape is used as a productive environment for food, energy, water, waste processing and biodiversity.
The total surface of Brainport Smart District is 155 hectares: bigger than 320 football fields. UNStudio’s urban plan was made with a flexible framework for incremental density. The site is divided into a series of strips (from north to south) that demarcate the district into ten parts, offering a diversity of urban and landscape densities and use. As an on-demand district, both urban development areas and nature areas are considered productive spaces, where a mix of living, working and leisure is facilitated. Residents will be encouraged to adopt communal resource schemes such as shared energy generation and land cultivation. In turn, BSD’s technology universe is introduced as a framework for sharing data and information in order enrich the efficiency of the landscapes, buildings and public spaces.
The Brainport Smart District was created by UNStudio, Felixx Landscape Architects & Planners, Metabolic, Habidatum and UNSense.
