Green dreams

A documentary depicts two divergent visions for eco-cities that stir uncertainties about the best way forward. Ming Liu reports from London.

In a scene in Ecopolis - a documentary about Chinese eco-cities - professor Eero Paloheimo is at his home in Finland, sitting in a room of light wood and simple furnishings. "We appreciate wrong things without a good reason," he says. "We don't appreciate useful and necessary things. Instead we appreciate the useless and unnecessary. Because it's luxury."

By 2015, one billion people will be living in Chinese cities, and Ecopolis - a 60-minute documentary in English, Chinese and Finnish - looks at the future of sustainable living in China. The film had its UK premiere last week, at London's Institute of Contemporary Art, where the screening was followed by a question-and-answer session with director Anna-Karin Gronroos and architectural writer and editor Herbert Wright.