Harvesting Cities attempts to facilitate the rapid growth of Hanoi by 2050 while maintaining and improving its agricultural productivity. Embedded in this conceptof an economically cohesive Greater Hanoi area are a series of new satellite cities – a strategy proposed in the existing Perkins Eastman masterplan. We elaborate the idea of these cities, giving each one a unique quality and an appropriate location.
Social and economic incubators such as university and research facilities, airport-related logistics, agricultural research and a transport hub are definedaccording to existing needs in theregion. In the new satellite cities, we focus on density, walkability, public space, and program mix rather than generating sheer size. The new cities inevitably interface with existing surrounding villages, learning more from their openness and communal ties than from the typical tendencies of new developments towards exclusivity. Crucial for this network of new cities is a new concept of harvesting: not just the cultivation and consumption of food, but the planning and provision of everything a city needs: harvesting knowledge, energy, mobility, education, accommodation….