20 miles from downtown Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, a city has literally risen out of the desert. It is a city meant to be the standard bearer for sustainable and environmentally conscious living, as well as a PR coup for the U.A.E.. Masdar is a staggering $20,000,000,000 monument to the ideals of “green” living: it has a 54 acre field of photovoltaic solar panels. wind towers to keep temperatures cool at street level, and the architects have even done away with the car-- transportation is managed by underground tunnels of electric pod-like vehicles.
Everything that the lead designer, Norman Foster, has constructed was designed with a purpose. The aforementioned wind towers are hollow, bringing the desert winds down to street level. Narrow streets (built that way to lower the amount of sunlight) are placed at an angle to the sun’s east-west trajectory, creating maximum shade and funneling the wind tunnel’s outdoor “air conditioning” efficiently. Foster’s team estimates that these designs can lower the temperature at street level by 30-60 degrees. The city will need a quarter of the power that a similar sized community requires (all of the power will be supplied by sustainable energy sources) while its water needs (always a crucial concern on the Arabian Peninsula) will be 60% lower. All of the water will be supplied by a solar powered desalinification plant.
Masdar itself is built above the desert floor. Raising the city 23 feet off the desert floor allows the city (and the wind towers) to catch desert breezes. It also allows a transport network to honeycomb beneath the city. Foster and his team designed driverless GPS controlled electric cars that can transport passengers anywhere they need to go in the city. Groves of trees have been planted in the areas around the city, to help prevent sand and dust storms. Solar panels coat the rooftops, a light rail line connects Masdar to Abu Dhabi (in fact, there are no cars allowed in the city at all; garages are outside the raised plateau of Masdar City). Apart from residential and commercial sections of the city, the neighborhoods are dotted with sustainable energy foundations, labs, and think tanks.
Images of Masdar conjure images of a sustainable energy enthusiast’s Disneyland; Foster himself made the comparison, saying, “Disneyland is attractive because all the service is below ground,” he said. “We do the same here — it is literally a walled city. Traditional cars are stopped at the edges.” In his enthusiasm, Foster lets slip a major flaw with this utopian project: It is a walled city.
Masdar City proper (the actual raised city) covers only 2.3 square miles. While Foster claims that it has nothing to do with social elitism, it is hard not to notice the gated nature that the city projects. Masdar can house only 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. It is designed to be a hub for clean tech and renewable resource firms, and the people who work for them. Much of the city is earmarked for these sustainable energy companies and their employees, leaving even less room for the average working family. Foster has created the ultimate gated community: one where you can’t even intrude by driving through.
The frustrating thing about Masdar is that the design is so meticulously perfect, with each feature flowing into and interacting with another (for example the wind towers funneling their cool breezes into carefully angled narrow streets) that it really is an achievement of sustainable architecture. The city, much like our SIS building, was built with a zero carbon footprint. Unfortunately, most of the world will never see it; this is a city built by rich environmentalists for rich environmentalists.
Moving on from the flaws of Masdar itself, we run into even more damning problems when considering what impact it may have on creating more sustainable cities. Zero Carbon footprints are an enormous financial commitment; can the developing world make that commitment while trying to house hundreds of thousands, not fifty thousand? Can they do away with cars like Foster so ambitiously did? Can any nation besides the very wealthiest even begin to tackle a “sustainable city?” And can any people besides the very wealthiest even begin to look at living there?
There are glaring flaws to Masdar City, but the architectural and technological prowess used to construct it have not gone unnoticed. Foster has provided an admittedly innovative example of what a sustainable city can look like. He gave us an answer to the bane of city planners (cars, and more specifically where to put them and how to get them from Point A to Point B), even if that answer resulted in a walled off community. I would expect to see techniques and ideas that Foster implemented in Masdar to be used in future sustainable cities and environmentally friendly building designs. Masdar’s renewable energy focus can even help retrofit existing cities. The trash incinerator outside of Masdar, for example, harnesses the hot air rising from the incineration process to generate extra power for the city. A bastardization process is likely, as various architects and city planners use different features of Masdar’s design to upgrade and improve their own cities.
The one truly hopeful result that comes out of the Masdar project is scattered across the shady streets of the city. As renewable and sustainable technology companies, labs, and think tanks move in, we are going to see a veritable constellation of renewable energy talent and thinkers concentrated within the walls of Masdar. The city will host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency and the M.I.T. sponsored Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. Having so many specialists living in one enclave will yield great benefits. The next breakthrough in building materials, or solar panels, or some other form of sustainable energy may come from the walled off confines of Masdar City. There is a chance that Masdar can help make other cities like itself cheaper and easier to build. Maybe Masdar City will be the first in a wave of sustainable cities and architecture, a rough prototype that will be improved upon. Until that revolution happens, the issues that Masdar tackles and the causes it stands as an example to will have little impact on the creation of a sustainable cities. Until we can find a way to make the technology used in Masdar available for all, most of the world will remain walled off from Foster’s utopian vision.
Wyatt,
ReplyDeleteI do not think it is possible for a “sustainable city” to come about without it being like a “Disneyland.” I think sustainability comes from developing pre-existing cities and making them “greener.” Sustainability should be an attraction, but still realistic. By making a new sustainable city like a theme park, it shows that it is a lofty and fantastical idea.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think a sustainable world is more likely to come by through the development of already existing cities or the creation of entirely new cities?
The issue with sustainable cities right now is that there is no middle ground. You either have a city like Masdar, where only the elite can afford to live there, and only the elite can afford to build it, or you get very little sustainability at all. Cities like Masdar cannot house the world's population unless they are much larger; and the cost of making a city that much larger will turn it into a playground of the wealthy.
ReplyDeleteGoing forward, I think a hybridization of sorts needs to occur. Architects need to take the breakthroughs and advances that come from cities like Masdar and apply them to aspects and parts of regular cities.
Wyatt,
ReplyDeleteHow would you propose the hybridization of a sustainable city and a current city work? Would ti simply be the upgrade of infrastructure of current cities to make them or eco friendly? Or would you propose that future development of cities be a hybrid?
Wyatt -- The environmental sustainability issue is, without question, one of the most pressing issues of our time as most scientists would agree. Many say this is something that we can't wait for any longer and we need to begin investing in cities like this one just as the U.A.E. has...
ReplyDeleteIf find the fact about it being a "walled" city for wealthy environmental enthusiasts an interesting one. You're absolutely right; We need to begin spreading this to all! How do we go about doing this? Does it need to come from the bottom up, or do we need government to step in from the beginning and facilitate it?
Crating a sustainable city is great, but it requires a lot of money. The UAE is used to be one of the richest state in the world, mostly thanks to Dubai. The modern Dubai looks even more luxurious and wealthy than New York Cuty, and it was built on the sand as well as Masdar, but Dubai is incredibly unsustainable, waisting too much water and energy and being pretty dirty nowadays. But at least it gave money to built Masdar, so where is the balance? What to do with the old "unsustainable" cities? Where to throw away all these trash or production materials? Does it worth it to create more pollution to create something sustainable?
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