Lusail City is the first and largest sustainable city in Qatar with ambitious and ground breaking concepts that reinforce every facet of Qatar’s National Vision. Lusail goes beyond the usual concept of a modern city by encompassing innovative ideas that take the sustainability principles into the core of the city masterplan.

Overview

Lusail City is Qatari Diar’s flagship project. More than just another development, it is a self-contained sustainable and comprehensively planned city signifying Qatar’s progress on a grand scale.

Created by Lusail Real Estate Development Company on behalf of Qatari Diar, Lusail City is the largest single sustainable development to be undertaken in the State of Qatar. It embodies Qatar’s National Vision 2030 in the field of real estate development.

More than 200,000 residents will live in Lusail’s scenic surroundings, with 170,000 people expected to work in the city’s different districts, and 80,000 expected to visit its entertainment, recreation and retail and hospitality facilities. Lusail City’s 19 districts will encompass not only new residential, commercial, hospitality, and retail opportunities, but a full array of community needs, complete with schools, mosques, medical facilities, sport, entertainment and shopping centers.

The city of the future boasts a light rail network, a water taxi transportation system, cycle and pedestrian network, park and ride system and sophisticated intra mobility network. Construction work on the 38 square kilometer, progressive world-class sustainable development is well underway with 65% of the infrastructure completed and 67% private project under construction.

Lusail Eco-Friendly Alternatives

Open Space And Landscape Amenities

With 17% of the total land area dedicated to open space in Lusail, Lusail has endorsed a water sensitive landscape plan to minimize the water consumption focusing on selection of Qatar endemic species with minimum lawn area. The Wadi Park is a good example for a conservation park which delivers a unique open space system to represent natural functioning of original Wadi systems to recycle and retain all run off rain water from al Khor rod system and adjacent urban fabric. The proposed Land scape Plan for the Wadi Conservation Park provides unique habitat consistent predominantly local plants to create an opportunity for cultural expression and educational and aesthetic experience.

The landscape strategy for Lusail encourages use of native vegetation with reversed desertification and prevents rain water runoff. Around 40% of total preferred species in the landscape strategy are native vegetation and only 5 % will be used   as lawn or turf. Approximately total area consists of 55 % soft scape and 45% is hardscape.

Land And Water Preservation

Lusail has environmental assessment and environmental planning study with a strategy to minimize environmental impact and protect the soil quality. The shore line of Lusail; extends over 27 km and protected by range of each structure

• Stone revetment walls
• Concrete retention wall with stepped walls, beached and terraced walls to create a new marine environment

The revetment walls will function as an artificial reef and provide habitat for various flora and fauna. Furthermore the building and green areas along the waterfront will act as a trap for windblown sand and dust coming from the North. The project mandate compliance with EMP (Environment management Plan) for protection of coastal and marine environment during construction and management of the project, there is also an annual environment monitoring siltation survey to ensure coastal protection.

Lusail strategy provides for extensive measures for water body protection with 27 km of waterfront development to minimize environmental effects and protect coastal area.

Habitat Preservation

Lusail City’s current strategy to minimize impact and protect current onsite habitat as recommended by the environmental impact assessment. The Lusail City plan enhances biodiversity of the site including dense seagrass beds, scattered sea grass beds, intertidal flats, low lying terrestrial areas, rocky dessert and the original vegetation.

Integrated Transportation

LRT :In order to reduce vehicular emission and save energy an integrated transport system has been introduced into the Lusail City including Light rail dedicated to Lusail with 38 stations across 38 km of rail to interconnect the 19 districts and respond to transport demand model.

Park and ride strategy: wherein car parking stations have been p[planned underground to ensure close proximity to rail stations to encourage people to use the Light Rail to travel within Lusail. The rail network is also connected to both the national and international network.

Water transport system has been developed to use the Lusail marina and the main Grand Canal to transport passengers within Lusail city through and from Lusail City

Cycle and pedestrian ways system is planned and being implemented. The network interconnects the entire city across the 67km cycle and pedestrian routes.

In addition a complementary bus shuttle system is currently being studied by Mowasalat to interconnect all the residential, commercial, and retail areas to the main public transportation system.

Road system: A road hierarchy for Lusail has been developed to avoid through traffic and protect pedestrian amenities’ by using extensive underground road tunnels

Sustainable Infrastructures

District Cooling

The Lusail District cooling system is amongst the biggest in the world and has been designed to save 65 million tons of CO₂ annually.

GAS

The Gas Network has been designed through the Lusail City to connect every single plot in the entire city to the Natural Gas Network, thereby saving electricity consumption particularly for domestic cooking and all large public entertainment venues and food and beverage venues.

Pneumatic Waste Collection (PWC)

This is in addition to traditional waste collection and is designed and implemented with source segregation for two waste fractions, wet and dry waste to support national treatment facility. There will be approximately 420 tons of organic waste which has potential for combustion and 310 tons with recycling potential.

Sewage Treatment Plant

Lusail’s Sewage Treatment Plant has been designed to ensure that all treated gray water will be recycled for irrigation purpose. It is a state of the art wastewater treatment plant designed and constructed on a compact platform to provide the highest standards in wastewater treatment and sustainable environmental solutions by utilizing the latest submerged Membrane Bio-reactor technology with immersed hollow fiber membranes to serve Lusail Development, the Pearl-Qatar, Leqtaifiya lagoon.

A full-fledged sludge treatment and handling facility consisting of thickening, aerobic stabilization and dewatering   using filter press, ensures a minimum of 30 % dry sludge at the outlet of the plant while the treated sewage effluent (TSE) produced at the utmost Environmental, Health and Safety requirements to be utilized for irrigation purposes and landscaping needs of Lusail City Development served by 9 km of return TSE mains ranging in size from 700mm diameter to 1000mm diameter

Smart City Concept

Has been designed to offer residents and visitors in Lusail an enhanced quality of life by availing the state of the art internal security services and integration of city wide smart metering, smart grid, integrated traffic management systems. Furthermore the availability to fully automate homes and office environment in Lusail will help running the most efficient Building Management System (BMS) for each and every building in Lusail City.

Proximity To District Facilities

The overall masterplan philosophy has been based on the district and neighborhood concept whereby all civic facilities has been integrated within each district to provide a higher standard of communication and reduce the travelling distance to basic services such as schools, mosques, daily shopping, basic commodities are available for each district within walking distance. The land for all these facilities in each district has been preserved for such use and is under implementation program to secure all the facilities in collaboration with the private and public sectors.

Centralized Facilities

Centralized facilities such as medium and large shopping malls have been located in a very central location in the city closer to transport nodes, to provide easy access to Lusail residents, visitors and all trips without needing to leave the city or use private vehicles for that purpose.

Beside the shopping malls Lusail city provides down town Style Street shopping at the Commercial Boulevard which is also connected to special people mover travelling up and down Commercial Boulevard in conjunction with underground Car parking with the capacity of accommodating 2500 cars under the street. These measures have been designed to facilitate intra mobility within the Boulevard using public transport and reducing private vehicle traffic generation in the street.

Reduction Of Travelling Distance

The Lusail master Plan includes the following features:

• Extended pedestrian and cycle ways to reduce travel by car and enhance mobility
• Inclusion of Mixed use plots in most districts to provide service and reduce travel
• Develop a safe public space and pathways to encourage walking between destinations
• Creation of public space though the master plan to encourage social interaction and promote physical wellbeing within walking distance.
• All public transport has been integrated within the master plan to support major destination within each district.
• All civic facilities are located on a district basis including schools, mosques etc.
• Neighborhood gardens planned and designed for each district within walking distance for each residential neighborhood
• Creation of opportunities for 170,000 jobs in Lusail to provide opportunities for residents to work and live in Lusail.
• Creation of major sports and recreation facilities for the residents and Lusail population such as golf courses, major stadium and training grounds , passive and active parks, marinas, water activities and culture facilities

GSAS

Lusail City was the first in Qatar to endorse the GSAS principles to rate all buildings according to their sustainability and performance. The current minimum star rating for any building in Lusail City is 2 star GSAS rating. In order to achieve this rating the building must comply with the energy calculator to ensure that the target scores are achieved to reduce the energy consumption, also the water conservation calculators are used to ensure reliable sourcing material with appropriate specification and encouragement of use of materials such as back fill etc.

The GSAS code and assessment also looks at quality of outdoor environment, the acoustic quality (internal & external Noise production), culture and economic value, management and operation of each building including the storm water management and water waste etc. Lusail City has introduced a unique insensitive scheme to encourage private developers to achieve a higher rating up to 5 GSAS stars in association with GFA percentage increase

Lusail is committed to attaining GSAS (Gulf Sustainability Assessment System) certification, measures to reduce environmental impact focus on:

Urban Connectivity

Reducing the loadings on the urban environment by:

• Minimizing the load on the traffic/transportation infrastructure.
• Developing efficient above and below grounds roads and walkways.
• Controlling the amount of light emitting from noise produced by the project or development.
• Encouraging the use of public transportation and developing in proximity to existing amenities.
• Reducing contamination to sewer and waterways.
• Preventing any risks or pollution to water sources.
• Minimizing access to daylight or solar potential to adjacent properties.

Site

Mitigating environmental impacts due to land use by:

• Maintaining and enhancing the ecological value and biodiversity of the site through remediation, conservation or restoration
• Defining a landscaping plan that encourages the use of native vegetation, reverses desertification and prevents rainwater runoff.
• Designing for mixed uses to reduce travel.
• Controlling wind conditions and temperature changes on the site and adjacent properties

Energy

Reducing the energy demand on buildings by:

• Designing the building to lower its energy demand.
• Selecting efficient building systems
• Lowering the demand on non-renewable sources of energy thereby reducing harmful emissions and depletion of fossil fuels

Water

Lowering demand on water by:

• Minimizing water consumption in order to reduce the burden on supply and treatment systems .
• Water consumption management through careful selection and specification of fittings and appliances.
• Rainwater harvesting and re-use for grey water flushing systems and as irrigation of landscaping.
• Designing a landscaping plan that minimizes the need for irrigation.

Materials

Reducing environments impact by:

• Recycling and reusing materials, on and off site.
• Using local materials as much as possible to reduce transportation needs.
• Using responsibly sourced materials.
• Designing for use of disassembly and reuse/recycling.

Indoor Environment

Improving environmental quality by:

• Monitoring air temperature and quality and adjusting or calibrating as appropriate.
• Ensuring a sufficient level of illumination while using an optimal combination of natural and artificial lighting.
• Maximizing views to the exterior for all occupants.
• Providing for occupant comfort by minimizing glare.