Carbon hero

The US $22 billion project is being developed in seven phases.
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Masdar City – clarion call of progess, or test-tube city? Giant leap for mankind, or petri dish with a giant budget?
Jamie Stewart meets director of property development Khaled Awad, and goes on site the world’s first zero-cabon, zero-waste city.

A short drive from the current centre of Abu Dhabi city, on the way to Abu Dhabi International Airport, lies what was until recently a 6.5km2 patch of relatively non-descript desert.

In February 2008, however, a remarkable transformation began. The Masdar Initiative, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company wholly owned by the Mubadala Development Company, broke ground on Masdar City. The project will become home to 50,000 residents, 1500 businesses, and will create 70,000 jobs.

In a land driven by petrochemical dollars ploughed into construction, mega projects are no rarity. Last year the pre-credit crunch GCC construction industry was valued in excess of US $2 trillion (AED7.34 trillion) by investment bank Al Mal Capital. A city of 50,000 may not therefore sound as remarkable as it would elsewhere. 

Until you reach the point of Masdar City – the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city.

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The $22 billion Masdar City is being developed in seven phases, and is slated for a 2016 completion date.  Electricity will be generated by photovoltaic (PV) panels and cooling will be provided by concentrated solar power.

Water will be provided by a solar-powered water desalination plant, while landscaping in the city and crops grown outside of the city will be irrigated with grey water and treated wastewater produced by the city’s water treatment plant.

Cars will be banned within the city. Masdar is exploring a number of models, but one in particular that looks set to be adopted, is a personal rapid transit system, whereby “pods” that accommodate four to six people run on magnets embedded in the ground. All the user needs do is climb in, tell the pod where to go, and the fully automated, centrally controlled system will do the rest.

Making an example

From the planning stage, Masdar City offered an opportunity unlike any other. It was the right time, and the right place. The world was in need of an example, and Abu Dhabi had the resources to begin pulling it off.

“The opportunity to plan from scratch was very important,” says Masdar director of property development Khaled Awad. “Fifty years ago we had beautiful cities in which people lived and were very happy. They were not emitting so much carbon for a reason.

“When we followed technology to the extreme and started thinking it would make things more accessible, we became more abusive. It was here that we forgot what the role of technology is.”

In order to begin the process of reigning in technology, and re-ordering the way that it is applied at the planning stages of a city, British architect Foster and Partners was hired to work on the masterplan.

Awad is the man charged with overseeing the development of Masdar City. The city is one of numerous projects being undertaken by the Masdar Initiative, though it remains Masdar’s flagship project. It is Masdar’s example to the world of how to walk the walk – not just talk the talk.

On the topic of Masdar City, Awad is something of an unsung hero to date. His colleague, Masdar CEO Sultan Al Jaber, has been the public face of the Masdar Initiative and its many facets, and was recently heralded among the most powerful men in the global green arena.

But for Awad, the challenge of Masdar City holds a similarly daunting level of component parts. “At the same time we are the utility company, the water company, the transportation company and the property development company,” he says.

“Integrating all of these things will be a big challenge until the end. This is where all our knowledge as a unique developer stems from. We are not like any other developer in town. We are unique because of the integrated knowledge we are building.”

MIST

Talking of knowledge, US-based CH2M Hill is the main contractor on site, and the city is on course to welcome its first residents in September – the first intake of students at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (Mist). The institute will occupy 6% of the area of Masdar City. Dean of engineering and acting provost Marwan Khraisheh is a man with an ambitious vision.

“We are trying to build one of the world’s premier research driven universities,” he says. “It will be the first of its kind, focusing on renewable energy, advanced energy and sustainable technologies.”