Have you ever wanted to leave the city life for a while and spend some time in the nature? Well, soon you might be able to get the best of both worlds. A Milan-based architecture firm Stefano Boeri Architetti has announced plans for a smart “forest city“. The city will be built in Cancun, Mexico.

The size of the city will be about 557 hectares (5.57 km²), 400 of which will be green spaces containing 7,500,000 plants. More than 200,000 trees would be planted to create a ratio of 2.3 trees per inhabitant. According to the firm “The Smart Forest City will absorb 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide with 5,800 tons of CO2 stocked per year”.

The city is designed to fully sustain itself through a system of energy production and water desalination. Around the city will be placed a ring of solar panels. These panels will, supposedly, generate enough power for all of the residents in the city. Water will be pulled from the Caribbean and desalinized using a solar tower. This water would be used to water crops using a system of canals.

There will be also no cars in the city. A Mobility in Chain system would provide internal electric and semi-automatic vehicles to transport residents and visitors throughout the development.

The city is designed for 130,000 people. Those residents could to live and work in the city, which will feature a wide variety of housing types to accommodate the needs of everybody.

Of course, no smart city is complete without the use of Big Data. According to the architects of the project “Sensors are distributed within the building fabric: they collect and share relevant information, which is then centrally analyzed and turned into suggestions in support of everyday life”. These recommendations could be about anything from the comfort levels outdoors to the preferred time to turn on the washing machines.

Boeri presented the concept masterplan and project to the Region and the Municipality in March, and is awaiting approval.