Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Masdar City
Green city in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Masdar City (Arabic: مدينة مصدر, romanized: Madīnat Maṣdar, lit. 'Source City')[1] is an urban community in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It was built by Masdar, a subsidiary of the state-owned Mubadala Investment Company, with the majority of seed capital provided by the Government of Abu Dhabi.[2][3]
Launched in 2006 as a $22 billion state-funded project to construct "the world’s most sustainable eco-city" by 2016, the start date for the project has since then been delayed indefinitely.[4] By 2023, approximately 15,000 people lived and worked in Masdar City (of whom 5,000 were residents), and the community covered less than a sixth of the area it was intended to cover.[4][5]
Remove ads
Commercial tenants and population
Masdar City is the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency.[6] Construction of IRENA's headquarters was completed in 2015. Masdar City was selected to host IRENA's headquarters after a campaign by the UAE.
The regional headquarters for Siemens is also located in Masdar City. The LEED Platinum building makes use of sustainable and energy-efficient materials and building techniques.[7] It was designed to use 45 per cent less energy and 50 per cent less water than typical office buildings.[8] The Siemens headquarters won an award for best office building at the MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Awards in 2012. The Middle East Architect Awards named it both the best and most sustainable office building in the same year.[8] Siemens signed an initial 10-year lease.[9]
Other institutions in Masdar City include Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) , G42, the UAE Space Agency and Khalifa University.[10]
Remove ads
Urban plan
Summarize
Perspective
The UAE government initiated the Masdar City project in 2006, with the state-owned enterprise Mubadala Development Company beginning development with a US$22 billion budget.[11]: 197 The original plan was that it would take approximately eight years to build, with the first phase scheduled to be completed and habitable in 2009.[12][13][14]
Construction began on Masdar City in February 2008 and the first six buildings of the city were completed and occupied in October 2010. However, due to the Great Recession and the 2008 financial crisis, planned completion was delayed to between 2020 and 2025.[15][16] By 2016, less than 300,000 square metres (0.12 sq mi) had been developed and final completion was estimated to be 2030.[17] As of 2020[update], a 2030 completion date was still projected.[18]
The city is meant to be an example of sustainable urban development, innovation, and community living. As designed, the city would be home to 45,000 to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. More than 60,000 workers were projected to commute to the city daily.[13][19][20] However, by 2023, only 15,000 people lived and worked in Masdar City (of whom 5,000 were residents).[4][5]
Foster and Partners designed six buildings in Masdar City's first phase.[21][11]: 196 Districts are designed to be elevated by 7 meters, which creates thermal insulation and separates pedestrians from vehicle traffic.[11]: 197 The Eco-Residences in Masdar City have terracotta walls decorated with arabesque patterns and are rated LEED Platinum. Masdar City contains a tech park made from recycled standard 40 foot unit shipping containers.[22] Passive design features include wind towers to improve ventilation and short, narrow streets to create pedestrian-accommodating spaces.[11]: 17
Remove ads
Transportation
Summarize
Perspective
.jpg)
Transportation options include public mass transit and a personal rapid transit (PRT) system, which transports people in autonomous electric pods along an underground track.[11]: 197 As of 2025, the PRT system remains a prototype, with high costs making expansion impractical.[11]: 197
In October 2010, it was announced the PRT would not expand beyond the pilot due to the cost of creating the undercroft to segregate the system from pedestrian traffic.[23] Subsequently, a test fleet of 10 Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars was deployed in 2011 as part of a one-year pilot to test point-to-point transportation for the city as a complement to the PRT.[24][25]
In 2018, as part of a trial project, seven autonomous shuttles, called NAVYA, began to operate on the podium, carrying passengers between the car park and the city center.[26] A further route was due to open in 2019 that ran from the residential complex above the city's North Car Park to the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Majid Al Futtaim's My City Centre Masdar Shopping Mall.[27][28][29]
Under a revised design, public transport within the city will rely on methods other than the PRT and NAVYA.
Masdar City is working on using a mix of electric vehicles and other clean-energy vehicles for mass transit inside the city.[30] Gasoline powered vehicles are prohibited and visitors arriving by car must park at the edge of Masdar City.[11]: 197 Abu Dhabi's planned but delayed light rail and metro line may eventually connect Masdar City's center with the greater metropolitan area.[15][25] As of 2020[update], connections to beyond the city continue to be by car, as a projected light rail line does not yet exist.[18]
Renewable resources
Summarize
Perspective
.jpg)
The original master plan envisioned a city functioning on its own grid with full carbon neutrality.[31] On-site renewable energy as of 2025 includes a 10 MW solar plant and 1 MW of rooftop solar.[11]: 197 Through passive design features, buildings in the city use 40% less energy than the average for Abu Dhabi.[11]: 197
In 2016, Masdar City was connected to the utility grid.[11]: 197 Gerard Evenden, the lead architect, says that the original plan for Masdar called for powering the entire city through on-site methods such as rooftop solar panels. He said,
"When we started this project, nobody had really looked at doing projects of this scale. Then you realize it's much more efficient to build your solar field on the ground in the middle of the desert. You can send a man to brush them off every day, rather than having to access everyone's buildings individually, and you can make sure that they are running at their absolute peak. It's much better than putting them on every building in the city."[32]
Low-flow water fixtures are used throughout the city to reduce water use, and waste water is reused "as many times as possible," with greywater being used for crop irrigation and other purposes.[19][33]
The exterior wood used throughout the city is palmwood, a sustainable hardwood-substitute developed by Pacific Green using plantation coconut palms that no longer bear fruit. Palmwood features include the entrance gates, screens and doors.[34]
Remove ads
Reaction
Summarize
Perspective
The project is supported by the global conservation charity World Wide Fund for Nature and the sustainability group Bioregional. In 2008, in response to the project's commitment to zero carbon, zero waste[22] and other environmentally friendly goals, WWF and Bioregional endorsed Masdar City as an official One Planet Living Community.[35]
The US Government has supported the project. The US Department of Energy has signed a partnership agreement with Masdar in a deal that will see the two organizations share expertise to support plans on zero-carbon cities.[36]
The Alliance to Save Energy honored Masdar City with a 2012 EE Visionary Award in recognition of the city's contributions to the advancement of energy efficiency.[37]
Some skeptics are concerned that the city will be only symbolic for Abu Dhabi.[12] In an interview in 2011, Geoffrey M. Heal, a professor at Columbia Business School in New York City and an expert in environmental economics, called Masdar City "a gimmick, a way of attracting publicity and attention."[31] Its use of solar energy is not a practical model for others to follow, Heal further noted, given that few places in the world enjoy as much year-round sunlight as the Persian Gulf.[31]
Remove ads
Gallery
Personal rapid transit (PRT)
Masdar City under construction
_cropped.jpg)
See also
- Abrahamic Family House, another international center in Abu Dhabi
- Sustainable city
- Sharjah Sustainable City
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads