Construction of a new city district masterplanned by Broadway Malyan within the New Clark City development in the Philippines has recently started.
New Clark City is currently being developed to the north of the capital Manila and when completed, it will be home to more than a million residents. This new city is expected to address growing environmental problems caused by climate change, with a planning focus on resilience in a region that has been heavily impacted by natural disasters.
The project is being led by the Philippine Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) in partnership with a number of private developers. Broadway Malyan was commissioned by Filinvest Land Inc to masterplan a 288-ha district on the edge of the commercial centre and next to the city’s main central park.
According to Broadway Malyan, the Filinvest New Clark City masterplan follows a ‘live-work-play-learn’ model with a diverse range of integrated land uses, including a specialist industry-focused university campus, affordable residential districts, an innovation and industrial park, hotels and a mixed-use commercial centre with lifestyle and community uses.
“A key aspiration for this project was to move towards non-motorised forms of transport,” said Ed Baker, director at Broadway Malyan. “This is facilitated by shaded streets designed for pedestrians and cyclists and urban blocks in the city centre that have been designed and broken down in to a finer grain of pedestrian-only connectors that encourage ease of movement and permeability and encourage more street life and ground floor activities.
“The planning has placed a particular importance on the creation of a district-wide open space and place-making strategy, creating a connected network of unique and accessible public spaces that provides ecological and recreational value for the surrounding communities.
“This strategy includes the integration of the existing hydrology, topography and flora and fauna within the masterplan where possible with a key landscape feature being the river valley ‘Loop Park’ that runs through the centre of the scheme and connects the different neighbourhoods.”
The 9,450-ha New Clark City was first inaugurated in 2016 and is set to become one of the world’s most environment-friendly cities. Its goal is to be pollution free through a significant focus on pedestrianisation and public transport, energy efficient buildings built predominantly from lahar, a locally sourced material produced during volcanic eruptions and public utilities using greener energy sources such as solar power, liquefied natural gas and waste-to-energy facilities.
As part of the first phase of development, the city will host the 30th South East Asian Games, scheduled for late 2019 with the New Clark City Sports Complex and accommodation for the participants currently under construction.
The city is also planned to be the location for the new National Government Administrative Centre, as part of a programme to centralise all government agencies as well as providing a ‘back up’ in the event of a natural disaster, with government buildings moving from the capital to New Clark City during the early construction phases.
