ABSTRACT
Pakistan, the sixth most populous country with 185 million people, grows in the last years at approximately 3.2 million people per year, generating a strong demand for new urban areas [1]. The Defense Housing Authority (DHA), among Pakistan’s most reputable land developers, has been instrumental in providing land for both residential and commercial use in several metropolitan areas. In Karachi, DHA has provided urban land in phases, with such land being most desirable to live and work, significantly improving the existing stock and allowing the growth of competitive economic activities. When DHA started Phase 10, at a distance of 55 km from the center of Karachi, the objective became to develop a self-sustained new city, although it should function as a satellite to the main metropolitan area. Pakistan has had a best experience from the planning of Islamabad by the legendary planner Constantinos Doxiadis, based on the Ekistics concept. So, the planners for the new city, called DHA City Karachi (DCK), also followed the Ekistics concept, enhanced to address the sustainability requirements of DHA. The resulting highly complex planning process, resulting from an uneven terrain and an irregular boundary, was possible to be carried out by employing advanced computer algorithms in the form of parametric design and GIS, tools that were unavailable to Doxiadis in the 60 s but fascinated him at the end of his professional life. This paper presents the sustainable planning approach for the new city of 600,000 people, handling physical constrains and site issues whilst ensuring adaptation to context. Then, the paper introduces how computing was employed towards applying Ekistics.