Conversation with the Engineer: Beyond Green Buildings—Entering the Ecological Age

Arup, the global design, engineering, and business consultancy, is the creative force behind many of the world's most innovative and sustainable buildings and transport and civil engineering projects. Founded over 60 years ago, Arup has operated in China for more than three decades, and almost a quarter of their worldwide staff of 9,000 is based in Hong Kong and China. Arup was initially commissioned by the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation in 2006 to put forward concept proposals for a new sustainable city: Wanzhuang Eco-City, located in Hebei Province. Plans for the 80 sq km site are now being guided by a Development Strategy, the Preliminary Control Plan and Sustainability Design Guidelines. British engineer Peter Head has been a director at Arup since 2004 and is based in London. He is chairman of global planning and leads the company's planning and integrated urbanism business, which includes development planning, economics and policy, integrated urbanism, transport and environmenta...