The desert wind whips up the dust and the temperature outside is a searing 43 Celsius. The humidity levels are at 90 percent, making the temperature feel more like 60. It hurts to breathe. In the middle of what appears to be scrappy scrubland, a city is emerging – a city where life is unlike anywhere else on Earth.
This city is not reliant on any other to exist. It harnesses energy from natural, sustainable sources and is designed to minimise consumption on every level. Its cavernous underground areas are fed natural light from above and studious researchers go about their business in a hushed atmosphere that’s at once excitable and totally relaxed. The wind, which builds up in its surroundings is intentionally forced through the city’s public areas but it’s somehow cooler than it was before it arrived. Driverless pod cars transport visitors, staff and inhabitants between locations and on-site taxis are electric and recharged at solar-powered stations.
The city’s inhabitants are free to come and go whenever and wherever they please but most choose to stay where they are, because the city provides everything they need. They are enjoying a utopian existence and have totally clear consciences when it comes to the lifestyle choices they have each individually made.
No, this is no set from a late 1960s Bond film, although there are many striking similarities. This is the future. This is also the present. This is Masdar City, Abu Dhabi.
Not far from here are the skyscrapers that the Emirates are famous for the world over. Masdar is the polar opposite – luxurious yes but its environmental credentials are beyond question. It is, according to its creators, how city life will be in the future. And after just a few hours being guided around, I have little reason to doubt them.
Masdar is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, with most of its funding coming from the government. Initially planned for completion by 2016, progress has been slower than planned but it’s still on course to be finished in line with Vision 2030, Abu Dhabi’s ambitious plan to transform itself and its surroundings beyond recognition.
At present, the only fully functioning area is the Masdar Institute – a campus where postgraduate students conduct research into solutions for our increasingly polluted planet. Established in 2007, the Institute is an independent, non-profit making organisation, guided and supported by Boston’s MIT. Teaching began in 2009 and the campus was officially inaugurated in November the following year.
Students have converged upon the Institute from all over the world, enticed by the real prospect of making a difference to the future of humankind. The research it carries out will affect future generations but then everyone who comes to live in Masdar is united in one common goal: to make the world a better place.
These are not empty words. Masdar Institute is full to capacity with researchers, many of whom live on campus in spacious, single-bedroom apartments. There is no room-sharing and facilities here are different to what you would find elsewhere. Spacious and pleasant, Masdar encourages these researchers to stay put and many say they don’t feel the need to be anywhere else.
The surrounding area is being prepared for the construction of the main city districts but care is being taken to minimise damage to the environment. Global technology player, Siemens, has just opened its own facility on the grounds of the Institute, an indication of the massive degree of trust in what Masdar aims to achieve. As I walk around, even the little that’s already in place catches my attention.
The desert wind is channelled through the city’s streets and courtyards because constant airflow minimises the need for cooling. The rooms here have their air conditioning set higher than is the norm in the region, at 25 degrees, and initially residents find this a bit warm. Pretty soon though, they say they no longer notice. With ACs automatically shutting themselves off when rooms are empty and an abundance of natural light - although never direct to shield from the heat – Masdar’s apartments consume much less energy than might otherwise be the case.
Roofs are covered with solar panels and as I walk around, I notice that there’s a huge section of the city that is all panels. Masdar has people researching ways to keep them clean, to maximise their efficiency, but the facility still only uses 30 per cent of the power its panels generate – the remaining 70 per cent is fed back into the grid.
Within a communal courtyard I come across a 45-metre tall, metal wind tower – a modern interpretation of the traditional barjeel. Sensors at the top train the louvres to open in the direction of prevailing winds and to close in other to better direct wind down the tower. Air-cooling techniques enable the tower to generate a cool breeze in the square below, even in low-wind conditions. Its LED lighting changes colour to indicate whether energy use at the Institute is above or below target level and the tower is further used as a platform for scientific instruments, including weather measuring equipment and air quality monitoring tools. It’s become a popular communal gathering place for students, away from the suffocating heat.
Everywhere I look, I see total intelligence in design – for instance all the staircases are spiral, to encourage air circulation throughout the buildings – yet some things, like the wind tower and the way the apartments have been designed, go back to the age-old traditions of Arabia. It would seem that this most futuristic of cities is also comfortable with the past.
Masdar isn’t here to preach. Rather, it aims to offer an alternative future, proof that we won’t have to destroy the planet in order to enjoy life on it. As I leave the campus in one of the remarkable PRT (Personal Rapid Transport) pods, I feel like I’m in the future already. And it’s a future I’m quite happy to experience.
“In terms of aesthetics and functionality, the campus itself is unlike any other building in Abu Dhabi,” Sheikha Ahmed Al Zaabi, a student I met at the Institute, explained. “From afar, the structure seems like an architectural misfit in the middle of a vast desert. Its futuristic design plays a large contrast to its surroundings. Reaching the Masdar Institute campus by riding the PRT certainly made a great first impression, since I have not seen this technology up-close anywhere in the world.” Neither, for that matter, had I. Welcome to Tomorrow.
