A master plan for low carbon and resilient housing: The 35 ha area in Hashtgerd New Town, Iran

► Climate change requires innovations for low carbon and resilient housing in Iran. ► A pilot project in Hashtgerd New Town explores innovations for the housing sector. ► The master plan is based on the idea to enhance energy-efficiency and resilience. ► It stresses the importance of non-technical strategies for low carbon urban form. ► Though a detailed plan has been approved, major challenges are in the realization. With 60% of the population younger than 26 years, a need of about 1.5 million residential units per year for the next 5 years and the necessity of mitigating its rapidly growing GHG emissions together with adapting cities to the expected drastic effects of climate change, Iran’s urban agglomerations are facing tremendous challenges now and in the future. The paper presents interim findings of the German–Iranian research initiative “Young Cities” (2005–2013) that investigates approaches for these immense challenges. The project aims at developing energy-efficient and resilient housing in a real-life pilot project, the 35 ha area in Hashtgerd New Town in the Tehran province. The article explores the framing conditions and the master plan of this pilot and identifies four key planning strategies. Besides applying climate-sensitive urban form, the project stresses the need to develop culturally adapted building typologies for reduced heating and cooling, an efficient public transport in a mixed and dense urban structure and integrated water and energy systems on the neighborhood level. Simulations of these planning approaches have proven a significant reduction of energy- and resource consumption and the capacity of the design to adapt to (a potentially changing) environment. These promising strategies for energy-efficiency and resilience were transferred into a legally binding comprehensive plan commissioned in October 2010, though the major challenge in the second phase of the project (2011–2013) will be making these innovations a built reality.