The plan is for the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region (BHMR), comprising the rapidly expanding capital city region of the State of Minas Gerais. The project will be led by CH2M Hill’s architectural design group IDC Architects.
Brazil is seeking recommendations for building modern infrastructure in the region, rooted in the concepts of sustainable occupation, innovation and economic development.
The state has received financing for the project from the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development. The project is considered a critical step for this region’s long-term planning, as it is designed to consolidate a decade of planning and create a framework for the region’s next 20 years of economic and social growth.
The project’s desired outcome is to secure global private long-term investment to grow the region as well as to improve quality of life for the 4 million people who live there today.
A central objective of the project is to generate ideas guided by “smart growth” concepts, including business, high-value industries, a variety of transportation options and preservation of natural landscape features.
The planning process will focus on the concepts of ‘work-live-play’ and ‘smart growth’, creating areas that support the needs of targeted industry clusters, while preserving critical environmental areas and promoting sustainable development.
“It’s a great tribute to the talents of our team that we were selected for such a prestigious project in a competition with a number of top global firms,” said IDC Architects president Tim Meier. “We’re motivated by the fact that this project is about much more than planning physical elements such as sites, buildings and infrastructure – it’s about planning the future of a vibrant region that has a great deal to contribute to the world.”
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