Abstract: Forest City is co-developed by Country Garden and Johor government-backed Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd (EDSB). It is strategically located in the fast-growing Iskandar Development Region, Malaysia, injecting another source of growth in ASEAN. It stands adjacent to Tuas second link, spanning approximately 30 KM2, including four man-made islands, golf resort and IBS industrial park. Forest City will be a smart and green futuristic city that combines environment design, industry integration planning concept to create an ideal, idyllic and technology-driven living and working space ecosystem.

Keywords: Smart & Safe City, Industrial Integrated City, Environmental Sustainability

“Global Green Smart City Award” was presented to Country Garden Forest City, by Mr. Oliver Chinganya, Director, African Center for Statistics and Officer-in-Charge, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)

Strategic Location

Forest City is located in the Malaysian economy hub - Iskandar Special Economic Zone, adjacent to Singapore, with easy access to ASEAN countries and APEC economic circle. The independent CIQs via land and sea have been officially approved by the government, and the newly constructed highway is operational.

Forest City utilizes the advanced multi-layered urban planning concept. The city is surrounded by green facades, sky gardens and rooftop gardens, forming a multi-dimensional greening system. Forest City will focus on 4 aspects: residents' living, urban management, industrial development and smart construction, to provide the city with diversified smart living and community services.

Forest City smart city development plans to put forward a smart development framework, namely "1 Brain, 4 Clouds and 2 Platforms", forging a "4 cities in 1"smart city infrastructure, with the focus of urban network and information security, providing residents and enterprises with a comprehensive smart experience. Forest City strives to become an advanced green and smart industrial new city in the next 5 years, creating smart residential living, refined urban governance, speedy online experience, vivid technology experience, convenient community service, comprehensive industry facilities and efficient construction industry.

4 in 1

Forest City plans to integrate the construction of "Optical Network City, Wireless City, Sensing City and Cloud City" into a whole for a perfected information infrastructure.

1. Optical Network City: To build a public optical fiber broadband network with mega capacity, making a city-scale optical fiber network community.

2. Wireless City: To provide free wireless network to cover the public area of Forest City

3. Sensing City: To collect in real time the operation status of city components by deploying a large number of sensing terminals in the city.

4. Cloud City: To build a public cloud computing data platform to improve data storage and computing capacity, and to facilitate enterprise development.

Smart Cloud Services

1. Smart Life Cloud

1.2 Smart Community Service——Creating the "last kilometer" community service circle

Through Forest Life APP, we provide online property management service, smart security, digital library, housing trusteeship and other intelligent community services, to create a safe, efficient and convenient community environment for residents.

1.3 Smart City Facilities

Smart city facilities will cover intelligent transportation, smart building, emergency management, health care and medical services, energy consumption management, etc. It supports the cultural, social and economic sustainability, and maximizes the efficiency of public service.

Smart Water Supply

2. Smart Management Cloud

2.1 City Management: Full Control of City Events——Alert, control, backtrack.

Forest City will build exquisite service of city life cycle management, which makes the city management more efficient, the city services more precise, the public resources more intensive, and the department collaboration smarter.

2.2 City Management: Overall Perception of City Components

Forest City’s exquisite management approach will have real time feedback on every city component, including management and monitoring of street lamps, energy consumption, environment status and pipe networks to ensure the city is safe, clean and efficient.

3. Smart Industry Service Cloud

To build a co-working space for companies and to provide "One-stop Quick Start" services, including desktop cloud, technology sharing, consulting services, agent services, etc., with a convenient, intelligent and secure working space.

4. Smart Construction Cloud

Forest City adopts the smart construction concept based on Building Information Model (BIM), which runs through the construction life cycle with digital engineering approaches, making the construction process environment-friendly, highly efficient with product traceability and delicate production management. This approach will provide property owners with more reliable construction quality and comfortable living experience. In terms of city management, it will provide visible digital assets, accelerating the cultivation of industrial ecologies.      

Smart Transport

Industrial Integrated City

Forest City aims to attract the world’s outstanding corporations and international capital investment by introducing 8 key industries to boost its sustainable development, namely Tourism & MICE, Healthcare, Education & Training, Regional Headquarters, Nearshore Finance, E-commerce, Emerging Technology and Green & Smart industry. As an international cooperation platform, Forest City aims to create opportunities for cooperation in a multitude of industries around the globe, with focus on the business in Tourism & MICE, Emerging Technology, E-commerce and Healthcare, attracting international capital investment. Meanwhile, it will equip with educational facilities and services to cultivate local talents and to support the development of those industries. In December 2016, Forest City signed MoU with 36 internationally renowned enterprises at the 1st International Industry Capacity Cooperation Signing Ceremony. In August 2017, the 2nd International Industry Capacity Cooperation Signing Ceremony was held. Forest City signed strategic cooperation agreements with 21 institutions from China, Malaysia, Singapore and UK to promote the construction of the industrial integrated city.

Environmental Sustainability

Forest City utilizes the latest technologies to balance between community development and environmental protection, taking into consideration the relationship between people and nature, and continue to carry out environmental protection activities. At the beginning of construction, Country Garden Pacificview (CGPV) received a report on the environmental assessment issued by the Ministry of Environment of Malaysia (DEIA) and met each and every one of the 81 requirements in the environmental assessment report. In the subsequent development process, Forest City monitored the growth of seagrass, installed silt curtains in adjacent waters, activated online ecological monitoring systems, conducted ecological research on a regular basis, monitored the growth of plants and animals, and monitored the deposition and erosion of coastlines quarterly，to ensure the ecology of the surrounding waters is protected. Startingfrom 2015, Forest City and the University Putra Malaya cooperated in the implementation of seagrass conservation programs, to monitor seagrass habitats in the surrounding areas, and regularly inspected and improved marine conditions. At present, seagrass, seahorses are in good condition as well as the marine ecosystem, providing a habitat for turtles and seahorses in the ocean. Country Garden's multiple-dimensional environmental protection measures would ensure its development would not affect marine ecosystems to the greatest extent, and would provide a sustainable living environment for generations to come.

Mangroves Planting

Seagrass Conservation

Corporate Social Responsibility

Forest city's investment in corporate social responsibility is focusing more on human-centred values. The Forest City setup a charity team to bring love and care to the disabled children's homes, Pertubuhan Kebajikan Cheng En and nursing homes in Johor Bahru. Forest City believes improving human resources is the most sustainable investment for society. Since 2016, Forest City has sponsored 5 local elementary schools for renovation, and provided free training sessions, as well as brought children to select and buy items for new school year. At the same time, Forest City initiate scholarship program for Malaysian University of Technology (UTM) students to empower and groom budding talents to eventually contribute to the Malaysian economy and society.  

Back to School Program

Scholarship Program for UTM Students

Job Opportunities Creation

Mr. Yeung Kwok Keung, the founder and Chairman of Country Garden Group holds the belief that “Teach one fishing rather than give him a fish”. Forest City has signed contracts with dozens of renowned suppliers to drive the development of local companies and provide job opportunities for local students. The steady development of the forest city will promote the economic development of Malaysia.

Industrialized Building System

Forest City optimized its technological resources to develop an Industrial Building System (IBS) Industrial Park spanning more than 400 acres with collaboration of Ebawe and IMER Group. It will become an industrial park that integrates the industry chain into a modern production base of construction products. It covers construction design, precast production, transportation, processing of accessories, assembly construction, research and development. In August 2017, the Phase I (modernized) precast factory commenced full scale operation, the annual output capacity exceeded 10 million square feet. In April 2019, IBS Industrial Park Phase 1 factory is recognized by The Malaysia Book of Records as“The Largest Fully Automated IBS Plant” in Malaysia. Forest City will continue its effort in industrialization of construction, improving the local construction industry value chain, and contribute to Malaysia's industrial development.

Industrial Building System (IBS) Industrial Park 2

Advanced Urban Planning Received International Recognition

2019

• 2019 Asian Townscape Jury's Award
• Asian Townscape Design Award
• 2019 Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Awards (SCAHSA Award) Global Green Smart City Award
• IDC Smart City Asia Pacific Awards-Smart Building (Smart B.I.Asystem)
• The Malaysia Book Of Records-“Largest Fully Automated IBS Plant”(IBS Industrial Park Phase 1 factory)
• ASEAN Property Award on Best Sustainable Green Development
• Certificate of CSR Contribution (Awarded by Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir)
• Outstanding Overseas Sustainable Development Award at the 2019 Chinese Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Conference

2018

• Star Property Awards on The Biggest & Most Advanced IBS Development in Malaysia by an International Developer
• Star Property Awards on Most Iconic International City Planner & Sustainable Smart City Developer
• 2018 Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Award “Global Model of City-Industry Integration”
• GreenRE Sustainable Design Award 2018 Gold Certification (Won respectively by Forest City Island 1, Shattuck-St. Mary’s Forest City International School Multi Use Centre)

2017

• 2017 Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Award “Global Model of Green Building Industrial Park Award”
•  Star Property Awards on 2017 Best Sustainable Development (South Malaysia)

2016

• 2016 Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Award “Global Human Settlements Awards on Planning and Design”
• Asia Pacific Property Awards on Mixed-use Development Malaysia
• Asia Pacific Property Awards on Best Architecture Multiple Residence Malaysia - 5 star
• MIPIM Asia Awards on The Best Futura Mega project Gold Award 2016 by MIPIM Asia
• Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Property Development New Product Innovation Award 2016
• Boston Society of Landscape Architects - Merit Award for Landscape Analysis and Planning
• His Royal Highness Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar awarded Mastery in Landscape Design for Mr. Liang Guokun
• The US Green Building Council awarded The Gold Level Pre-certification under LEED-CS for Forest City Sales Gallery

(The article and photos were provided by Forest City.)