THE world’s most ambitious sustainable development today has been making rapid strides over the past year towards becoming the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste city powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

Currently in its first phase of construction, Masdar City is located approximately 30 km from downtown Abu Dhabi and will include breakthrough technology and innovative designs to ensure optimum energy efficiency and sustainability, while maintaining comfort levels for residents.
Under once such designs, giant umbrellas will provide moveable shade in the day, store heat, then close and release the heat at night in the central plaza of Masdar, says Chris Bosse, founder/architect at Sydney-based Lava (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture).
Lava won the international design competition for the plaza, the heart of world’s first sustainable city Masdar.
Set to be the world’s first zero-carbon zero-waste development, the $22 billion Masdar City project is being developed by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar).
After winning the context in January this year, Lava teamed up with the Sydney/Dubai-based Kann Finch group, engineering firm Arup, with whom Bosse previously worked on the Watercube in Beijing, Transsolar, a leading energy consultancy, and a team of international experts.
The city centre of the new eco-city in the UAE, master-designed by Foster and Partners includes a plaza, five-star hotel, long-stay hotel, a convention centre and entertainment complex and retail facilities.
“East and west are fused in the plaza design inspired by both the oasis, as the epicenter of Arabic nomadic life, and the iconic piazza of historical European cities,” says Bosse.
The organic forms created by the forces of natural erosion in geographical landmarks such as great canyons and wadis are the design inspiration behind the key buildings in the city centre.
“The solar-powered umbrellas, with a design based on the principle of sunflowers, capture the sun’s rays during the day, fold at night releasing the stored heat, and open again the next day. They follow the projection of the sun to provide continuous shade during the day.  The sunflower principle is eco-friendly and can be adapted to anywhere in the world – it opens opportunities for outdoor living, even in the desert,” he says.
The “sunflower” umbrellas are one aspect of the winning design. Other key innovations include building facade angles that can be altered to offset or optimise solar glare; materials on wall surfaces that respond to changing temperatures and contain minimal embedded energy; water features that can be stored underground during the day and at night trickle or flow strongly, triggered by passersby; interactive light poles, inspired by the oasis fire, that transform the plaza into a three-dimensional interactive media installation; interactive, heat-sensitive technology that activates lighting in response to pedestrian traffic and mobile phone usage; and roof gardens that integrate food production, energy generation, water efficiency and the reuse of organic food waste.
Meanwhile, the Middle East’s first 10-MW solar park at Masdar City was connected to Abu Dhabi’s electrical grid in May this year. It is producing power to finish the zero-waste, zero-carbon city’s remaining construction phases.
Half of the solar park’s 87,000 photovoltaic (PV) panels are thin-film variety supplied by the US-based First Solar, while the other half comprises crystalline panels manufactured by China’s Suntech. The solar farm is the Middle East’s first grid-connected PV generation plant, and will supply Masdar City with 17,500 MWH each year.

The government-initiative Masdar is being constructed over seven phases and is due to be completed by 2016. It will eventually grow to accommodate 1,500 businesses and 50,000 residents.
Masdar has recently invited five UK organisations to tender for the contract to design its sustainability standard. They are Aecom, Arup, BRE, Hyder and WSP. The standard will set out sustainability targets for the project.
Masdar Institute
Among the major projects being developed within Masdar is the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (Masdar Institute), the centerpiece of the Masdar Initiative, which is expected to see its first students this month. The Masdar Institute is a private, not-for-profit, independent, research-driven institute developed with the support and cooperation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  The institute has joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI) as a founding public member. The collaboration will support ongoing research and development of alternative and renewable energy technologies and solutions, as well as provide new opportunities to help meet the world’s need for sustainable energy supplies and practices.
A joint venture of the local Al Ahmadiah and Hong Kong’s Hip Hing is working on the first phase of the project while bids have been invited from prequalified contractors for the next phase (Phase 1B). The US-based Parsons Brinckerhoff is the project manager.
The prequalifiers included the Al Ahmadiah/Hip Hing joint venture; a joint venture of the local Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises and South Africa’s Murray & Roberts Contractors (Middle East); the local/Lebanese Arabian Construction Company (ACC); UK-based Balfour Beatty; Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC); US-based Contrack; Germany’s Ed Zueblin; India’s Larsen & Toubro; and Australia’s Multiplex.

Headquarters
Masdar has also shortlisted four groups for the contract to build its new headquarters to be located within the development. These companies are a joint venture of UAE’s Al-Habtoor Engineering Enterprises and South Africa’s Murray & Roberts Contractors (Middle East); US-based Contrack International; Germany’s Ed Zueblin; and Japan’s Taisei Corporation.
Al Jaber Group is currently working on the enabling works and foundations package for the headquarters project following the award of a Dh6 billion ($1.6 billion) contract.
Earlier, Mott MacDonald of the UK won a deal to design the infrastructure for the Masdar City project. The company is designing the main plants and utility distribution networks that will serve the 5.5 million sq m development.
A particular feature of the design is a Personal Rapid Transport system (PRT), which will run on renewable energy and play a fundamental role as cars will be banned from the city. 
Chicago-based Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture has designed the building as the world’s first large-scale 'positive-energy' building, generating more energy than it consumes.
Louis Berger Group is the project manager, Environmental Systems Design is mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer, and the structural engineer is Thornton Tomasetti, all from the US.

Innovation hub
As a cleantech cluster and hub for technology innovation, research and development, the city is attracting industry leaders and researchers. Masdar is partnering with the world’s most prominent companies, investment firms and educational institutions to develop and deploy leading technologies, systems and sustainable solutions in Masdar City and in the wider Abu Dhabi and Gulf region. One such example is the International Renewable Agency (Irena) which recently decided to locate its new global headquarters in Masdar City.
Masdar and the Swiss Village Association (SVA) are developing a “Swiss Village”, a distinct neighbourhood within Masdar City, which will integrate and serve as the home of Swiss companies with expertise in clean technology. The agreement between SVA and Masdar provides a framework that allows Swiss companies – who will be among Masdar City’s first tenants – to take a role in the design, construction and occupation of the Swiss Village. In turn, this will provide Masdar with a wider access to leading technologies and materials from the Swiss market available for deployment throughout the city.  
Cleantech companies established in the city will have the opportunity to test their technologies and contribute to its sustainable growth. Additionally, they will conduct research and development alongside the Masdar Institute.
Masdar has also partnered with one of the world’s leading applied research organisations, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, to develop a Sustainable Cities Research Centre in Masdar City.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has over 80 research centres across Europe, Asia and the US and is internationally renowned for its ability to develop new technologies and bring them to market. The Sustainable Cities Research Centre would be the organisation’s first Middle Eastern research hub.