This a follow up to one of my previous posts on Masdar City. Here a reporter describes his experiences there and comments on the success of the project and its future.
The real "gold" in this article though, lies in the comments section where we get more in depth look at the context and other people's experiences of the project.
Enjoy.
Inside Masdar City: a modern mirage
The first phase of this zero-carbon Gulf city is up and running. But behind the futuristic facade of driverless pods, medieval streets twist and turn back the clock to traditional design
Plodding pods ... driverless vehicles pass by each other in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi – but it might be quicker to walk. Photograph: Kamran Jebreili/AP
Masdar City is like a mirage: a walled city growing out of the desert sands in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Yet it is real, and remarkably so; for this intriguing city not only exists but is also one of the most unexpected in the Gulf region or anywhere in the world. Behind those walls and wind towers is one of the world's first zero-carbon cities. I went to see it recently, just shortly before families from across Abu Dhabi turned up in their thousands for The Market @ Masdar City, the first one-day fair designed to showcase the architecture and planning of this brave attempt at shaping a truly sustainable city of the future.
Designed by Foster and Partners for the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company and set in the desert 17km from the skyscrapers of Abu Dhabi, Masdar is an intriguing experiment in urban design and living. The six square kilometre city – powered by solar energy and other renewable resources – is an attempt to show what kind of future might lie ahead for urban development in the Gulf now that the high-rise city of gas-guzzling towers, that has characterised the region in recent decades, has been increasingly discredited.
Although unlikely to be completed much before 2025, when 50,000 people are expected to live here, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (the anchor of the first phase of the city) is up and running. Its buildings, streets and squares give a good idea of how Masdar will be.
Getting to the showcase streets of the new institute is an unusual experience. Arriving by road from Abu Dhabi – there will be a train in years to come – you swap your car for a ride in a Personal Rapid Transit pod, an experience that combines the cartoon aesthetic of The Jetsons with the comedy of Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle, the 1958 French satire that lampoons the excesses of an overdesigned futuristic world.
The driverless sci-fi pods bumble around the undercrofts of the first phase of Masdar City and it is a wonder that none of them bump into each other. But they move so slowly it may well be quicker to walk. The original idea was for these comic pods to criss-cross the entire city underground so that residents, commuters and visitors could reach any part of it without having to drive, and in the welcome shade. There would have been hundreds of pods. In the event, they have been seen as an all too complex way of getting about. Future phases of Masdar will be pod-free, although cars and lorries will be directed underground, leaving the streets above for pedestrians only.
Walking here is a pleasure. Streets and squares are shielded from the sun, desert winds, sandstorms and heat by thick-walled buildings that provide shade and funnel the breeze between them. Although modern in appearance, these streets and buildings are essentially old-fashioned. With its narrow alleys, deep shadows and wind towers, Masdar follows in the tried and tested footsteps of traditional Arabic towns, where keeping the sun at bay was both a science and an art practised over many generations.
Eventually, there will be homes, businesses, parks and mosques here and Masdar City will relax into its role as an urban sustainability frontrunner. At the moment, it can seem like a theme park aimed at attracting day-trippers, yet these are early days. Gradually, the Jetson-like novelty side of the city – especially those driverless pods – will take a back seat as Masdar matures. The true success of Masdar turns on the recognition that the very old ways of designing and building cities in hot climates are the ones that make most sense: thick walls and carefully directed breezes rather than pods and wind turbines. It's the determinedly ultra-modern aspects of Masdar that prove to be a mirage.
Comments in chronological order (Total 27 comments)
10 May 2011 6:13PM
I applaud the idea; while being slightly skeptical these ideas need testing. But can you please stop referring to it as a city? It's a town.
10 May 2011 6:18PM
And..........
Is it any good? Do what you like? what are its flaws? and Is it as sustainable as it claimed?
This is not the first article on the city in the Guardian and so should be deeper than the previous ones. I am sure your articles are still of a high quality in the AJ but this article is verging on Polly Filler territory.
10 May 2011 6:31PM
Visiting Egypt as a tourist some years ago, the cool of the 3000 year old mud brick buildings was a revelation. But they were neglected and crumbling: ferociously air conditioned concrete slab construction was all the rage. If Masdar helps make the clever old methods chic and fashionable again, it will do some good. But so far it sounds more like a theme park than a real place.
And 'Arriving by road from Abu Dhabi – there will be a train in years to come ...' sounds ominous. They left space down Milton Keynes' boulevards for the tram system that was going to be built as soon as there were enough residents to make it viable. That day will never dawn because, in the absence of trams, residents adopted car dependent patterns of life that could not now use trams even if they magically appeared. Compare and contrast Vienna where you have to put the tram line in before residents move in to new housing areas. Sustainability requires dirigiste planning and public service investment as well as clever low-resource architecture. The high tech gadgets - the bit most people get excited about - are a distraction.
10 May 2011 6:36PM
I visited Masdar in March, to film a video that includes footage of it and write about transport aspects of its development. The piece is quite right to pick up on quite how pleasant a place it is. In a region where most modern cities go in for wide streets that are vulnerable to the glare of the sun, the squares with their fountains and so on are genuinely reminiscent of Seville, Tangiers or one of the liveable old cities built to withstand such harsh environments.
I also found it astonishing the pods didn't crash - I had a fright at one point when I saw one apparently on a collision course with ours, before realising that it was the reflection of ours in some glass.
But it is a real problem that Abu Dhabi's planned metro won't reach Masdar for a long time. It seems strange to have a zero-carbon city that can only really be reached by car. The other issue is how widely applicable the lessons from Masdar are. It's fine building such a development as a one-off in oil-rich Abu Dhabi. The question is whether its lessons in sustainability will be learnt in places that have already developed in a far less sustainable fashion.
10 May 2011 9:39PM
I met an architect today who was looking for any septic tank.
It seems the job of architects is much harder than ordinary people might be thinking.
11 May 2011 1:15AM
I think the author has misinterpreted the design of this eco-city. The basic concept was to build a platform for the buildings that would allow a lower level, called an undercroft, to be used for PodCar circulation withing the city. Cost cutting measures have eliminated the undercroft along with the use of PodCars for internal circulation. The street system is not suitable for driven autos and it lacks connectivity and suitable widths and parking spaces which have to be airconditioned. A complete redesign is therefore going to be necessary. The article says that cars and lorries will circulate by using an undercroft that has been abandoned to save money. Someone at the Guardian needs to talk to someone at Foster+Partners to get this issue clarified.
11 May 2011 1:50AM
I am not an architect and my understanding of urban design may be seriously faulty. But I'd been under the impression that a town lacked consciousness, let alone volition or reproductive abilities, and that it instead was built and maintained by people -- typically, by poorly paid, dark-skinned people (in the Gulf, typically from such nations as Bangladesh and the Philippines). Where will these people live? (Or doesn't this matter as long as white people in suits are comfortable?)
11 May 2011 2:18AM
Hmm. I guess that means you don't like the styling of them. Or maybe you just find riding in a driverless car freaky. Are they over designed, though? Apart from being computer controlled, they're very simple electric cars. It's only when you think about what they're doing that they reveal what they're offering -- taxi-like service at bus-like prices.
afaik, they drive at a steady 25 km/h (16 mph), which may seem slow (compared to typical urban speed limits), but is considerably faster than the average speed of traffic in most cities, and a lot faster than walking. Their very steady speed is one of the things that makes them green. Meanwhile, the reason they don't crash is that they're not bumbling; they move with the sort of millimetre precision you would expect from computer-driven vehicles.
Actually, the original idea was to have the pods on elevated guideways above street level, but someone decided underground was better. This led to the undercroft idea. Originally, also, cars of the human-driven sort were to be banned. The podcars got killed because someone changed their mind about human-driven cars, and the podcars were in the way. A drastic reduction of budget combined with the high cost of the undercroft provided the excuse.
So, no more podcars at Masdar, it would seem. Never mind, have you seen the Heathrow ones?
11 May 2011 5:30AM
Anyone living in a large energy dependent city should applaud this approach...
my own house, by design uses 10% of the average British household energy annually...
11 May 2011 5:54AM
Those undercrofts look perfect for cycling in.
11 May 2011 6:36AM
I moved from London to Abu Dhabi last year and now live a ten minute drive away from Masdar City. I visited it recently when it held it's first 'festival day' which was a great opportunity for the public to see the various 'green' companies in the area as well as learn about the effects our lifestyle have on the environment. (It was also great to see emiratis and expats together, which to be honest doesn't happen as much as it perhaps should do but I digress...)
Pollution is a real issue in Abu Dhabi and an excessive use of plastic bags has led to a huge rise in camel deaths in the UAE. There was, until recently, a general lack of interest in recycling and being environmentally friendly (its not just the emirati community I refer to, I see plenty of my fellow Westerners not even bother to use the recycling bins provided) and I feel that Masdar and what it represents, is a step in the right direction. The PRTs are such a focal point at Masdar because this is a region where petrol is nearly as cheap as water and so many people drive guzzling SUVs. Granted a few PRTs aren't going to change attitudes overnight but awareness is being raised and issues are being raised so I take my proverbial hat off.
Masdar City has highlighted a lot of problems to the local community and I'm really impressed by it so far. I also love the automatic PRTs! So nippy and fast!
11 May 2011 6:39AM
I should add that in London I walked everywhere And never used a car so travelling at 25 mph seems pretty quick to me. Clearly I have been deprived of experiencing high speed vehicles! :)
11 May 2011 6:53AM
I wish this would stop being described as 'zero carbon'. That implies no carbon has gone into making it - which is far from the case. I haven't been there but I imagine thousands of trucks rolling in and out daily, huge amounts of concrete being used and acres of glass. All of these things have massive embodied energy.
What's more, the construction of solar panels takes a large amount of energy and the very fact that the whole place is 'high tech' means that there is a huge invisible support industry for all the components - most of which will probably be in China.
I'm all for sustainability, but I think we have to be more honest in describing these places otherwise they truly will be mirages.
I'd be willing to bet that the kind of town that would have been built in that region 150 years ago would be 1000 times less energy intensive. Progress?
11 May 2011 7:05AM
Hmm, conventional wisdom here, down the other end of the SZR in Dubai, is that Masdar was a big publicity stunt generated in all the pre-bust euphoria and that now the AD rulers (well MbZ who is the one that counts) have lost interest hence the massive and abrupt defunding of Madar last year (compare the "vision" to the modest accomplishment). They secured the HQ of IRENA (in return for toadying up to the US as revealed by Wikileaks cables) and thus got the requisite green veneer on the basically unsustainable Gulf urban model. I mean what is the point of a "zero Carbon city" (oh, and I believe that zero carbon motto is being junked too - going to something like the equivalent of Body Shop nonsensical "against animal testing") which could only be built using the resources of the most environmentally unfriendly state imaginable?
Masdar is yesterday's story. MbZ and co are too busy arresting pro-democracy bloggers, continually seeking new ways to subtly humiliate Dubai's MbR (not unjustifiably of course) and organising spontaneous tribal shows of loyalty to pretend to care about the environment any more..
11 May 2011 7:12AM
Architecture review without pictures is like porn without sex.
11 May 2011 8:47AM
NoneTooClever
11 May 2011 6:53AM
They tried to take all of that into account, including by using recycled and low-carbon building materials, and by offsetting. Here's an article discussing it:http://www.aggregateresearch.com/articles/14562/The-new-Masdar-City-first-in-its-kind-for-ZERO-emissions-waste-and-carbon.aspx
More on the undercroft. The undercroft idea was vastly more expensive than putting the vehicles on overhead guideways. It also made the city layout less flexible. If overhead guideways had been used, there wouldn't be the problem of accommodating the personal rapid transit system alongside human-driven cars at the same grade, so if the PRT had been overhead, the budget cuts probably wouldn't have affected the podcars. Letting human-driven cars into the city represents a massive dilution of the original vision.
11 May 2011 9:30AM
@one life I don't think it's yesterday's news at all. The place was teaming with life at the market event and in Abu Dhabi there's a concerted effort to advertise it. It's often advertised or referred to in Abu Dhabi week which practically every expat here reads.
Besides the abrupt defunding had little to do with MBZ losinginterest and more to do with the fact that the project was losing stacks of money due to being badly managed from the start. I say this because the Mr works for the same finance company which has been brought in to fix their money issues and get it back on track.
Masdar might not be the utopia that it's been made out to be but it's not worth writing off yet. The science university means that it will all be on the map for a long time even if interest in the city's green credentials slides as the years go by
11 May 2011 10:30AM
It looks like the set of Total Recall from the pictue, Johnny Cabs everywhere!
11 May 2011 10:35AM
The way I had it explained to me, the problem with the pods was that the system couldn't cope with the complexity. There were going to be hundreds of different potential starting and finishing points for journeys and it just wasn't possible, I was told, to get the system to organise that efficiently. It sounded surprising - I'd have thought modern computer systems could handle such a thing. But I was told that was the reason for their abandonment.
Unlike the author, I found the pods quite fast, even if it was a little pointless for the very short journey between the car park and Masdar institute.
As I understood it, there are not going to be undercrofts in future phases. They'll be on ground level. I don't know quite what the policy on cars there is going to be. There certainly isn't an expectation that many will be allowed into the main city. The streets are wide enough for fire engines and so on, so there must be some scope for powered vehicles to use them.
The city is designed to encourage cycling at street level, although I didn't see any when I was there. I certainly wouldn't want to cycle in the undercroft with the driverless cars. They'd make London white vans seem safe.
11 May 2011 10:40AM
On the point about the conventional wisdom in Dubai, incidentally, I find it hilarious how in the Gulf everyone slags off the next city along. In Oman, they shake their heads, suck their teeth and say how the last thing they want is for Muscat to become like Dubai. In Dubai, they accuse Abu Dhabi of just spraying money around indiscriminately (although anyone who's visited the spectacular Yas Hotel might say Abu Dhabi has done it with real style). Masdar is Abu Dhabi's quiet rebuke to the chaos of Dubai. And everyone is shaking their heads over the Qataris and their bizarre plans for high speed railways, air-conditioned world cup stadia and so on.
They can all end up sounding rather provincial.
11 May 2011 10:58AM
And in the Independent last week I read that the "zero-carbon" ambitions have been slashed, a former honcho from Shell is now in charge of the project, and much of the electricity will come from gas-burning power-stations.
Just another Emirates real estate gimmick.
11 May 2011 11:50AM
Being eco-friendly is not enough to make a city sustainable.
Sustainability has lots of dimensions - economic, social, cultural, educational - which must all work together, in addition to the built environment. It won't be sustainable if it ends up being a class-riven dictatorship, even if it is low carbon.
11 May 2011 12:02PM
I do hope a journalist comes back next month when the temperature gets up to 50C and tells us how pleasant it is to walk around the shady, water-cooled streets. Of course, it could still be better than the broad, unshaded, traffic-clogged roads of Abu Dhabi City, which are generally not much fun to walk along at any time of the year.
11 May 2011 1:34PM
Longhaultrucker
11 May 2011 10:35AM
There's no evidence that it can't cope with complexity. In fact, it's designed to operate in complex networks, and a simple loop with two stations doesn't show off its advantages to the full. Perhaps when the person giving you that explanation said "complexity", they meant interacting with non-PRT traffic. PRT depends on having an exclusive right-of-way to function efficiently, but someone decided in early 2010 that human-driven cars (electric, hybrid or CNG) should be allowed into the city, and it was obvious that they would not be able to share ROW with the PRT system, so the PRT system lost.
11 May 2011 8:43PM
@swedinburgh Masdar is still very much being presented as a carbon neutral city and that's still the aim. At least it was a week ago! Everyone involved in the project says that hasn't changed...but they have realised that they have quite a few issues to deal with,
Besides if a former shell 'honch ' has been brought in it's not to fill the place with petrol but to tidy up a rather large financial mess (Masdar was bleeding money until recently)
12 May 2011 10:33AM
Dear All
thanks for interesting comments
I wrote this to keep up to date with the The Market@MasdarCity, an event that encouraged a good number of local people to come and see Masdar for themselves. I'm sure we'll return to Masdar in some detail as it progresses.
Mr gruniadreader666: this is a blog, not a feature article. I think we're all still experimenting with how we work online. There's a feeling - still - that we shouldn't write at length online. I would be interested to know what readers (or are we "viewers" online?) think.
all best wishes
jg
12 May 2011 6:50PM
As for me, I haven't even red that blog-entry. I am not interested in architecture, and the more I don't care about a city that name I cannot pronounce.
Since you have finished your A-levels just recently, it's time now to get used to all these new media. Someone told me once, that it needs much research to attain knowledge. Not a bad suggestion, isn't it?
Look there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture
But in the end, I think you should simply come back to important things, which really touch our lives.