"Shanghai's Eco-Home" at the Urban Best Practice Area

Anchor: Green is the main theme for the future of human life here at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. "Shanghai's Eco-Home" at the Urban Best Practice Area conveys the idea that by the year of 2030, many city residents will enjoy more sustainable, energy saving, yet more comfortable houses.

Our reporter Liu Min finds out more.

"Have you ever imagined living in a house where you can feel free to open and close your ceiling and save 80 percent of your electric bills? Well, that's the place you will find today at the Shanghai's Eco-home in the Urban Best Practice Area."

The apartment-like building is four stories high, making full use of energy from wind, light, shadow, green plants, and waste. The first attractive thing a visitor sees is the glass handrails along the staircase, which have green water running through them. Tao Fangfang, one of the volunteers working at the pavilion, says,

"The green water actually contains lots of algae in it. It can absorb CO2 from the air and emit oxygen. The efficiency is ten times higher than green plants."

On the roof, a wind-powered generator can provide power to the whole house and promote air movement in the courtyard. The roof of the house can also slide open at the command of house residents when they need fresh air and more sunshine. The elevators in the buildings can do smart calculations on the weight of the passengers and use the least of energy to carry them up, thereby saving potential energy for electricity use in the house. All kinds of smart designs point to the same purpose of energy efficiency. Besides those features, considerations for kids, housewives and senior members of the family are also quite interesting. For example, on a wall shadowed by a special projector, kids can draw colorful pictures by their fingers on the wall, but erase the picture by using their palms to sweep the area. Touch-sensitive drawers in the kitchen and intelligent refrigerators which can tell you the exact time your food goes bad are warmly welcomed by my housewife visitors. Shanghai is one of the cities with the most senior residents. The house designs for them are even more user-friendly. Tao Fangfang is pointing at an intelligent bed which can send data to doctors for senior users.

"Here we have a remote medical system. For the elderly, it is quite difficult for them to travel to a remote hospital and wait in the long queue. The computer on this bed can transfer all your health data to your doctor when you wake up in the morning and the doctor can tell you what you need to pay special attention to today."

All of these technologies seem to be quite advanced, which may be difficult to put into practice for ordinary people. But experts say many of these technologies used in the house have already matured. Many buildings across the country currently use similar biological and intellectual methods. Thus, it is not only a dream to allow ordinary people to live in such houses; it may soon become a reality. The ecological houses can reduce the energy bill and also reduce the energy costs in construction. Recent research shows that China produces 200 million tons of construction garbage every year. Houses like Shanghai's Eco-Home have actually turned garbage into something of value. The bricks of the building are made of the debris from construction sites or silt from the bottom of local rivers. The Secretary in Chief of the China City Science Research Association Li Xun says such house models will be the trend in the future.

"If we don't pay much attention to reduce our construction energy cost, then by the year of 2020, our country will consume a total energy in construction equivalent to the energy of one billion tons of coal, which is also equal to the electricity energy that the Sanxia Dam produces for three to four years."

The Shanghai Eco-home depicts the lifestyle of the people in Shanghai in the next 20 years through traditional Shanghai architecture including "tiger windows," Shikumen, and floral windows. The designers of the house say they hope the eco-home can exemplify the concept of a "Low-Carbon Expo" and help accelerate sustainable urban development in the future.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.