Green Belt City, Las Vegas

Green Belt City reinvents the highrise residential development as a model ecological urban community. Located on a 100-acre site along a Las Vegas highway, the design reimagines the typical parking podium as a multistory loop, topped with a 2.5-mile-long promenade of public green spaces, ringing the site. This green belt encloses three larger public piazzas – the “hearts” of the development – with unique identities as a campus zone, spa zone, and cultural hub.

In each zone, a “super tower” performs major eco-infrastructural functions, collecting solar power, housing wind turbines, and recirculating water. The parks double as the world’s largest “living machine,” filtering all the development’s gray water. The interior of the site is car-free, and an aerial tram to the strip and shared fleet of electric cars further encourage residents to forego personal cars.