Masdar - The Sustainable Desert City: A Theoretical Mirage
or A Realistic
TANG, Gabriel <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0336-0768>
Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at:
https://shura.shu.ac.uk/23438/
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Citation:
TANG, Gabriel (2010). Masdar - The Sustainable Desert City: A Theoretical Mirage
or A Realistic. In: LEHMANN, Steffen, WAER, Husam Al and AL-QAWASMI, Jamal,
(eds.) Sustainable Architecture & Urban Development Volume 3 of Sustainable
Architecture and Urban Development: SAUD 2010, The Seventh International
Conference of The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region. CSAAR
Press, The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region, 175-189. [Book
Section]
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Masdar - The Sustainable Desert City:
A Theoretical Mirage or A Realistic
Possibility?
Gabriel Tang
Department of Architecture and Planning, Sheffield Hallam University,
England.
Abstract
Masdar City, currently being developed in Abu Dhabi and designed by Foster +
Partners, a high-profile British firm of architects, sets a groundbreaking example
of a new breed of eco-cities. The city’s birth has taken on an environmental
stance. Having recently completed its first phase of construction, the emphasis of
the development is principally based on sustainability, using traditional walled
city planning and existing technology to achieve a net zero-carbon and zero-
waste development. To achieve carbon-neutrality, the design team has employed
a series of innovative environmental design strategies and integrated planning
principles. This paper presents these strategies and discusses the project in
relation to its social, economical and environmental contexts, and considers
prospects for the viability of building in the desert and its global impact on
sustainable urban development of the future.
Keywords: Masdar City, Desert Cities, Sustainable Urban Development
1 The Desert Environment and Desertification
1.1 Introduction
Whilst parts of the world are experiencing wetter weather, other areas are
experiencing hotter and drier weather. These global climatic changes are
accelerated by human activities arising from carbon emissions as well as many
other harmful greenhouse gases and pollutants associated with motorisation and
industry. The degradation of existing drylands is further complicated by the
increased mismanagement of human activities such as increased deforestation
and grazing, resulting in more of the earth's surface turning into deserts,
therefore accelerating the process of desertification. (Le Houerou, 1996;
Millington and Pye, 1994).
Although desertification could be prevented or reversed if drylands were
managed properly, it is interesting to speculate whether these areas, having lost
their economic value as farming and grazing lands, could still usefully support
human life, albeit on an urban basis. Can we begin to build green desert cities on
these degraded lands to revive its capacity to support life again? Some schemes
have been employed to stop this process of desertification - the better use of trees
in Northern Kenya (Muga, 2009) and the growing of straw grids to stop the
spread of deserts, sand fences in Middle-East (http://www.pubs.usgs.gov). It may
be relevant to pose the question to whether construction of a city can have a
similar remedial effect to stop the extent of desertification.
Taking into account the current problem of over-population that is putting a
strain on earth’s resources, the success of a sustainable desert city survival will
have an implication on how the desert can be used to solve the global problem of
overpopulation. Since drylands support a fifth of the world population (Barker,
2002), what happens to the desert has implications on human existence on the
planet. If a new desert city can be planned to be sustainable, built sustainably and
can operate sustainably, building new sustainable cities may in fact have a
positive impact on the desert environment.
1.2 Cities in The Desert
Many civilizations have existed, lived and survived in the harsh inhospitable
desert environment throughout centuries in many different parts of the world -
the native North American Indians of the Mojave Desert, tribal people of the
Atacama Desert in South America, the Bedouins that thrive in and around the
Sahara Desert in Africa and the Aborigine peoples in the Gibson Desert of
Australia.
For various socio-economic reasons, settlements and cities have also risen
out of the desert sands - Las Vegas, Phoenix and Dubai, for example. Recently,
within the Middle East, an impressive breed of cities has been built and many are
planned or are in the process of construction. For example, The King Abdul Aziz
City for Science and Technology, Qatar's Education City, Egypt's Mubarak City
of Scientific Research and Technological Application and Bahrain's Higher
Education City (Murray, 2009).
The question of city building in such harsh, dry and inhospitable
environments remains debatable. Taking into account the energy it takes to build
and run a city in the middle of a desert is a concept that defies conventional logic
of human settlement making. As such, desert cities are often not considered a
sustainable move.
However, one city in the making has ambitions to change this - Masdar City
in the UAE is a city that aspires to be sustainable and net carbon-neutral - the
first city in the world to do this.
2 Methodology and Limitations
The analysis of sustainable city building is based on a case study example of a
brand new city under construction and specifically Masdar City. This paper will
be based upon limited secondary data that has been published about the city and
its development. As the city is still under construction, there is limited amount of
published work used to form the basis of critical evaluation. As such, an
interview with the Senior Partner and Project Architect Director for the project
was conducted to provide an overview of the project. This paper has been written
about this new project to raise awareness of a revolutionary sustainable desert
development, to provoke interest and to encourage critical debate within this area
of sustainable architectural and urban design.
3 The Birth of Masdar City
"I think what is most special about this city is that it is not just any
normal city; it is a city of green buildings, green research and
that’s what’s most special about it. I think the fact is, there are a
lot of cities being talked about in the world, carbon-free cities and
so on, but this one is a real one and it’s being built! In fact, the
first phase of the Masdar Institute is nearing completion!"
Gerard Evenden, Senior Partner at Foster + Partners when asked
about what is most unusual about this city during the interview.
Masdar means "source" in Arabic. The city’s conception is based on the need to
diversify an economy largely based on fossil fuel which currently generates
approximately 70% of the gross domestic product of the Emirate (Reiche, 2009).
The city is being built with the ambition of being the first net-carbon and car-free
city in the world.
The city, to be built on existing desert land, is situated 15 km east of central
Abu Dhabi adjacent to the airport, in the Arabian Peninsula. The city, whose aim
is to become "the silicon valley for clean, green and alternative energy" (Masdar
Initiative, 2008), measures 6 square km and is designed with numerous
sustainable features.
When completed, the city will house 50,000 residents. It endeavours to attract
1500 businesses in renewable energy supply and research and development,
providing jobs for its residents as well as a further 40,000 commuters who would
be transported into the city by light rail transit (LRT) which also connects the
new city to the airport (Masdar Initiative, 2008).
The Masdar Initiative was first instigated by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed
bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. The project is a wholly
owned subsidiary of the Mubadala Development Company. The project,
developed by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC), is wholly owned
by the government of Abu Dhabi (Crampsie, 2008).
The designers looked to ways of inventing a new city which fundamentally
caters to the needs of the users, and provides a high quality of life, without
compromising standards of modern day living. The project will be constructed in
seven phases.
Foster + Partners were approached to design the city in a 2-stage competition.
The office was appointed to become project architects after the first stage of the
competition. The site for the new city was offered by the clients.
"One of the aims of the Masdar Initiative is about connecting
people together in order to move the technology of renewable
energy forward. We realized this in terms of the team structure -
by bringing the right people together. They (the clients) thought it
was a good basis to move forward and we also had shown them
the idea of our design, which in terms of masterplans is very
important in showing the balance of land and development. We
cannot develop all the land if we are looking to support
development. We have to look at the ways in which we do it, we
have to look at the way people live- that was really the
driver…What we said was first of all, we should look back and
look at people and look at the way we create spaces between
buildings and create spaces for people."
Evenden, when asked what was the main design driver of the
project and the project set-up.
Figure 1: A Bird’s Eye View of Masdar City. Can such a vision become a
reality? Image courtesy of Foster +Partners
3.1 The Urban Morphology
The orientation and layout of the city is a direct response to sunlight. One of the
greatest problems facing survival in any hot and dry desert environment is how
the human settlement deals with the heat, dryness and exposed nature of such
geographical locations.
The direction of the urban grain is twisted to an orientation that maximizes
shading in the streetscape, subsequently minimizing daytime heating on street
level to create cool public spaces for people to use. The streets are also made
narrow to replicate maximum shading conditions in traditional Arabic cities such
as Aleppo in Syria (Craft, 2008). Interestingly, these are not revolutionary
strategies; rather evolutionary common-sense developed over the centuries by
Arab city builders to achieve thermal comfort in the hot, arid desert. The
orientation of the urban grain also imparts a variation of the street character by
its ever-changing light levels during different times of the day. The tight and
dense nature of the planning principles of a walled city helps to protect the city
from desert sand and grit blown in by the desert winds.
Shaded courtyards are created by the use of blinds and solar shading. The
shading helps to further reduce energy loads of the building which are supplied
from renewable resources, such as solar power, to keep the development net
carbon-neutral. Appropriate elevations of buildings are also loaded with
photovoltaic cells which also provide shade to the spaces below.
"The idea is that you can move around underneath. The important
thing is that we’ve got pedestrians and communities above, and
because of this relationship of one building to another that creates
shade, pedestrians can walk around the city in the shade. If you
made everything wide enough for the transportation system to
move around on the same level as the people, then you wouldn’t
have the benefit of that relationship between buildings. And if you
don’t get this relationship between buildings right, and if you don’t
get the passive systems of the buildings working correctly, you
can’t reduce energy load in the building. You have to reduce
energy loads in buildings between about 60% and 70% from the
normal, from today’s level if you’re going to stand any chance of
producing energy from renewable sources to power the buildings."
"The city is lifted up on a deck. Basically what we have done is
that we separated the transport from people. The city is raised 7
meters in the air and all the traffic and pedestrian activities occurs
underneath. …….We don’t want it to be a walled city- it’s not a
defensive city- it’s trying to open up to the outside. We are trying
to make a vertical separation. It is permeable on ground level by
the transportation system coming to and moving around inside it."
Evenden explaining how traditional principles of the walled city
helps to reduce energy loads of buildings and separates the
different modes of transportation in the design.
The city is raised 7 meters above ground on a podium that separates transport
from pedestrian movement. The transport system is located in the lower level
whilst pedestrian movement is designed to take place on the upper level. This
typology is similar to other "plinths" that appear in other historic Arabic cities
such as Shibam in Yemen, on which it was built to protect the city from floods
and from human attack.
3.2 The Masdar Institute
The first phase consists of the Masdar Institute which is a collaborative
educational establishment set up with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) to offer courses and research facilities related to green energy. 40,000
foreign students and researchers are expected to be in residence in Masdar City.
The research institute seeks to further knowledge on alternative building
technologies by using the construction of the city and monitoring it to enhance
research and development.
Thermal comfort requirements to live, work and play comfortably, in the
harsh desert environment, are met by new technological solutions derived,
interpreted and developed from traditional principles evolved over centuries in
Arab civilization and settlement architecture. The same challenges of modern
city living are met by a series of creative and more sustainable means.
3.3 Sources of Renewable Energy
The project includes the construction of a 10MW solar farm that will provide
energy for the construction work. During the interview with Gerard Evenden,
Senior Partner and Project Architect from Foster + Partners, it is learnt that the
solar farm is currently producing excess energy where this is returned to the
national grid. The energy needs of the city will also be supplied from wind and
bio-fuel sources.
3.4 Transportation Strategy
"I wouldn’t call it car-free - Masdar has a transportation system.
What we’re looking into is the future. Cars are petrol-driven. We
are not trying to exclude convenience. We’re trying to bring
convenience using all the new forms of transportation and what
the new forms of transportation might be in the future. I think
Singapore is a fantastic example - where the public transport is
extremely efficient and where the population actually uses it,
because it is efficient. We need to look at ways to constructing
efficient and convenient transportation system that may take many
different forms in the future. But what we’re doing is keeping out
the petrol driven vehicles that are producing all these carbon. And
actually when you look at burning oils and car fuel, it is a terribly
inefficient way of using fuel."
Evenden, talking about the new form of transport at Masdar City.
Masdar City will be the world’s first car-free planned city. The city will be
linked to Abu Dhabi City and the airport, as well as other nearby communities
with Light Rail Transit System (LRT), essentially a carbon-free mode of
transport running on electricity.
Pod cars as part of the futuristic PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) system will
shuttle people within the city. The small cars, each of which seats up to six, run
on a recyclable lithium-cadmium battery, whose charge can be topped up while
the vehicle is waiting at the station. The cars mechanically run on repelling
magnetic forces in a multi-level, barrier-free environment. 3000 pod cars will
make up to 135,000 trips per day. The journeys will be planned and time-tabled
sophisticatedly to prevent traffic jams, eradicating stresses of city travel. These
pod cars journeys will last a maximum of 7 minutes between any of the 83
stations at any point within the city. The city recognizes the convenience that is
Figure 2: Shaded Courtyards and Walkways within the development paints a
desert idyll of tranquility. Image courtesy of Foster +Partners
provided by private transport, but provides this in a more environmentally
friendly format.
Masdar City has also been designed extensively with features such as shaded
courtyards and walkways that encourage a personable and carbon-free means of
moving about around the city such as walking and cycling.
3.5 Water Management
"We are also looking at the separation of black and grey water
and the recycling of water for irrigation and so on. All the water
we use is desalinated because it has to be able to drink. There is
no potable water available. What we have to do is to reuse the
water that is desalinated as many times as we can in order to
create the irrigation etc."
Evenden, speaking about water management issues in Masdar
City.
One of the greatest problems facing a settlement in the desert is its shortage of
water. Sea water will be desalinated using solar power for use as potable water in
Masdar City. To conserve water, grey and black water will be separated,
recycled and used in irrigation applications.
3.6 Greenery
"We’re looking at low water usage and low water using plants. In
the past, people brought in species from outside the country which
are high water using plants. A lot of them come from places like
Singapore and Malaysia, and so what we’re looking at is types of
plants and also the individual water usage of each plant."
Evenden, when asked about the choice of plants in the city
planting scheme.
The benefits of a green environment to human existence are commonly known.
Plants and vegetation will be introduced to create a comfortable environment for
humans to live in. Studies of different plant species are being conducted. Plants,
mostly species indigenous to the desert environment, have been selected and
used to create a green living environment.
3.7 Waste Management
Vacuum waste technologies are utilised to eliminate the need for landfill. Waste
will be categorically separated. Bio-waste will be composted and the end-product
used to enrich farms and plantations located at the periphery of the city.
Recyclable waste will be recycled and the remaining wastes will be used in a
waste-to-energy plant. During the construction process, all steel, concrete and
wood will also be recycled and reused. (Masdar Initiative, 2008)
3.8 Energy Recovery
A natural gas reformer and carbon capture facility that transforms 100 million
cubic feet a day of gas produced by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
(ADNOC) into hydrogen and carbon dioxide is planned. The recovered gas is
then sold back to ADNOC (Gavin, 2009).
4. Architectural Design Planning and Sustainable Urban
Strategies
4.1 Passive Cooling Strategies
Two Green Linear Parks are designed to run across the city to maximize air flow
across the city in relation to land and sea breeze influxes. They act to funnel
fresh cool air into the city and drag stale hot air out of the city.
"It does so by funneling air and allowing a greater amount of air
through. We’re looking at the areas at the edge of the city - denser
towards the centre of the square and less dense towards the edge.
As air comes across the desert into the city, we want it to be mixed
up and moved around and pushed down into the streets in the
centre. The other thing that happens is that you have this situation
when you deliberately change the direction of the streets. It's not a
grid plan, If you create changes in direction in the street, what
happens is that there will be a change of direction - air movement
becomes turbulent and an eddy effect is created. Therefore, the air
gets flushed out and thrown out of the street and so you get this
cooling effect. In terms of the wind tunnels and these effects, they
are actually working." explained Evenden, Senior Partner, Foster
+ Partners.
Passive cooling strategies such as wind towers and wind gates, evolved from
ancient Arabic tradition of city building, are integrated into the urban design. At
the time of writing, the first wind tower is being constructed.
"There are some wind towers to achieve passive cooling in the
public areas. In The Masdar Institute, there is a wind tower. We
are not trying to collect any wind energy particularly. Half of the
centre's energy might come from wind, but the problem with the
wind in Abu Dhabi is that it is very sporadic and not consistent,
not particularly strong and actually the best source of renewable
energy is, of course, solar energy." Gerard Evenden Senior
Partner, Foster + Partners.
Interestingly, the early principles of methods of passive cooling such as wind
tunnels and wind gates are still being deployed in today's high-tech construction
project.
Figure 3: A Green Linear Park of the city. Image courtesy of Foster +Partners
4.2 Construction Materials and Process
The environmental credentials of building are being monitored with regards to
the choice of building materials for construction. Building materials are recycled
at a recycling plant on site.
4.3 Mechanical Ventilation: Air-conditioning
The Masdar Institute contains numerous scientific research laboratories that
require specialist ventilation. In fact, some of these technical areas will require
24 hour of air-conditioning. These mechanical ventilation systems will be
powered by electricity derived from the sun via solar farms which offsets carbon
consumption to maintain net carbon neutrality.
5. Critiques of the Project
Some critics believe that even if Masdar City is able to self-sustain on a net zero-
carbon, zero-waste basis, building in a desert environment that is hot, dry and
ultimately unsuitable for human existence, does not represent sound sustainable
practice. In such an inhospitable environment, any desert city will require much
more resources such as land, water and energy to construct and sustain. The hot
and dry desert environment also requires much more energy for the
desalinization of water for irrigation and for human consumption. It would also
inevitably require more energy to run and cool such a city. (Stilwell and
Lindabury, 2008).
A further fundamental criticism made of Masdar City concerns the fact that
the UAE relies heavily on crude oil and gas exports. The US$22 billion needed
to build Masdar City is, therefore, considered as being primarily funded by an
unsustainable industry (Stilwell and Lindabury, 2008). Skeptics might also view
Masdar City as just another record-breaking projects built within the Emirate
today, an unfortunate contradiction to the driving ambition of becoming net
carbon-neutral to comply with the One Planet Principle. Moreover, at US$22
billion, this project is extremely costly, few countries would find it easy to
finance the construction of such a highly aspirational city.
Stilwell and Lindabury (2008) cites the insignificance of Masdar City in
reducing greenhouse gas emissions of the UAE due to its size in comparison to
the other cities of the Emirate cities. According to the Living Planet Report 2008
published by The WWF (World Wildlife Foundation), UAE has the biggest
ecological footprint in the world. Masdar’s predicted population of 50,000
(Masdar Initiative 2008) is small compared to Abu Dhabi City's population of
650,000 in 2005. The population of UAE is expected to grow rapidly with the
development of 2 new industrial centers, new developments and tourist
attractions (http://www.soe.ae). With this many development built and an
expanding population of inhabitants, the carbon-neutrality created by Masdar is
thought of as being quickly offset by the development by the rest of the UAE.
As Masdar is planned on walled city principles, one can easily draw
similarities between other historical cities such as Shibam in Yemen. The
vertiginous Yemeni City is built in the 16th century on a plinth to protect
themselves from attack of the weather and other people is the oldest surviving
city. The tall buildings in this Unesco World heritage site was built from adobe
made from the earth nearby and baked under the sun. This is a true example of
the local use of materials. The urban form also creates shadows within the
fortified city to enable the inhabitants to be able to walk comfortably in the
scorching heat of the desert. Many building openings and mechanisms of passive
cooling have been incorporated within the design of the various dwellings in the
city. Although these 2 cities are similar in form, the technologies used to create
these built forms are very different. This raises the question of whether Masdar
could have employed such low-tech building systems to push the mantra of
carbon footprint reduction to its limits. This raises the question of being carbon
neutral versus net carbon neutral developments - and questions the validity of
importing non-local materials such as glass and steel into the desert to construct
a brand new city.
Masdar has a strategic economic set-up, taking best advantage of its
associations with a petroleum-based economy. By diverting economic emphasis
to a knowledge-based industry of higher education and research of green
alternative energy, the construction project acts as a testbed for new ideas and
new technology. The new city is set to attract a new breed of well-educated
intelligent émigré, drawn to the attractive standard of living, quality of life and
an environmentally-conscious lifestyle offered by the city. However, one might
question if this may in fact create a gated enclave of specialist residents detached
from the rest of the country. Physically, with the edge of the city as defined as it
is; although not walled, the city does not engage with the rest of the land. How
the city assimilates into the rest of the country socially poses a valid cause of
concern.
An alternative perspective highlights the possibility of building on areas
previously deemed economically unviable such as deserts and newly desertified
zones. On our planet, the effects of global warming are having an incremental
effect on the areas of dry arid desert being formed (Edwards, 2005). With
desertification being accelerated by human activities such as over-grazing,
building new cities in these newly desertified areas may have a positive impact
on the desertification process, stop or even reinstate these lands into
economically sustaining land which supports human life again. With an
increasing global population and with resources of our planet stretched to
support our rapidly expanding population, the results of this experimental desert
city is eagerly awaited upon its completion in 2016.
Encouragingly, Masdar City is of an unprecedented scale in comparison to
historical examples of eco-towns and eco-settlements such as the Vauban area of
Freiburg in Germany (population of 5,000 (www.urbed.com)) and The Bo01/
Vastra Hamnen in Malmo, Sweden (10,000 inhabitants, (www.malmo.se)).
Comparatively, as Masdar is of unprecedented scale, it brings global attention to
the significance and issues of sustainable urban development.
In addition, the beginnings of Masdar is seen as a hopeful sign of the
commitment the Emirate States is offering to address the pressing issue of
sustainable urban development. The conditions have been favorable in the case
of Masdar - it has the financial backing, and importantly political vision,
leadership and support (Masdar Initiative, 2008).
Fundamentally, a city is not defined just by its collection of buildings, or its
cutting-edge environmental architecture. A planned sustainable city will only be
successful when its citizens embrace this lifestyle change. This can be most
effectively achieved by generating education opportunities and developing this
awareness into a culture that can be passed down from one generation to another.
The citizens, the residents and end-users of the city will ultimately give Masdar
City its character and finesse. The citizens of Masdar is expected to largely
consist of expatriates within the 6 square km area. This population is expected to
hybridise into a new culture of a mix of high-technology expertise, green
awareness and cosmopolitanism.
Excitingly, Masdar would become the second city in the world without the
motor car (after Venice, Italy). The development postulates the future of public
transport in an urban setting. If this works, the green transport plans may become
the common blueprint for transportation of future cities and inform how older
cities might retrofit their infrastructure to accommodate green modes of
transportation. Although the city has done without the use of motor cars, the ease
and convenience of city travel is not removed. This is an interesting observation
that a city is reverting to a historical model not designed for the motor car, as
seen in many medieval towns and cities like The Shambles area in the city of
York in England where the roads are narrow and were not built to accommodate
vehicular transportation.
Learning from the designers, Masdar is designed not to compromise human
comfort or reduce the experience of modern city living - the city is, afterall, built
for human habitation. Through the introduction of environmental values,
technology and lifestyle change, the city hopes to eradicate the banes of modern
city living - traffic jams, air pollution, noise pollution and inefficient public
transport- an idea similar to the Garden City Movement where it is believed that
a particular way of town planning can improve the lives of people (Hall, 2002).
Likewise, the construction of Masdar has the power to enhance the way people
live without resorting to environmentally - costly construction and operation.
Masdar, therefore, redefines the needs of urban life in the new era of
sustainability.
Very importantly, Masdar City has looked back at the indigenous ways that
century old building traditions and technologies can be revised, updated and
applied to today's construction. This is a sensible way of producing architecture
for the modern era and suitably references the city to the local history and culture
of its geography, thus contextualizing any city building to its local climate. We
see in the case study of Masdar City, that the design team has reapplied
traditional Arab city building principles to achieve passive cooling and other
environmental benefits. Using local know-how to inform the urban development
is an important resource in any sustainable development. This should be
encouraged globally at various locations to create a built environment that relates
to the local identity, but draws on construction intelligence developed over time.
6. Conclusion
Masdar City is an experimental urbanism, set to break many records and in this
case, an important, meaningful and honorable one. If successful, as the first zero-
carbon and zero-waste civilization on earth, it would set precedence as a
sustainable urban model for future city design. This is particularly acute when
issues of depleting resources are creating great problems in our planet such as
global warming and its associated ill-effects that we are too familiar with.
Coupled with the earth’s resources being stretched to support an ever increasing
global population, this urban model is doubly significant if successful. If this
project can really be carbon-free, it will imply that deserts, often not the most
suitable of environments to sustain life, could effectively become feasible as
lands viable for creating and supporting a sustainable community. The barren
desert can therefore be reinstated to support human life at a significant level with
sustainable merits deemed beneficial for the environment.
The design team uses advanced green technologies and reinvigorated
traditional planning principles developed in a localized context over the centuries
to engineer a city with ambitions of a zero carbon-footprint. The results and
effectiveness of these technologies is eagerly awaited when the city is completed
and operating.
As seen within the publicity images and computer-generated fly-throughs the
designers have created a seductive idyll of living in a city in the middle of the
desert. Included within this paper are marketing images which makes one believe
that this utopian view will one day become a reality. Interviews and scientific
findings of inhabitants, and other stakeholders who eventually live, work and
play in this city, conducted in the future would ascertain the real success of the
construction of this city and its impact in urban planning and city building in the
future.
Although there are criticisms about the projects, Masdar City is regarded as a
ground-breaking project with an honorable cause. Since its high-profile launch at
Cityscape Abu Dhabi in 2007, the tight building programme has resulted in this
city taking shape very rapidly. The first phase of the project has been completed
at the time of writing. The conception and construction of the city is viewed as
an important resource of education and research for the present generation and
future generations within Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, The UAE and the world at
large. It is hoped that upon its proposed completion in 2016, Masdar City can
meet its aspirations to become a world first carbon-neutral city.
Liken to The Titanic on its ill-fated journey to cross the Atlantic, Masdar
City, currently under construction, is on a ground-breaking mission on its maiden
voyage into unknown territory. It is with much anticipation the city can "arrive
on the other side" and become a prime example of how urban development can
take place sustainably in the future and be transformed from a theoretical mirage
into a realistic possibility.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my thanks to Gerard Evenden, Senior Partner and Project
Architect of The Masdar Project at Foster + Partners for taking time out to be
interviewed. I would also like to thank his personal assistant, Sophie Ray for
organizing the interview and for Foster + Partners for allowing me to use the
images on this occasion.
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