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Located 17 km from downtown Abu Dhabi, Masdar City is one of the world’s most sustainable cities. The city embodies the latest innovations in sustainable development, while offering a vibrant urban space for its communities, businesses, and research organisations.
Recognising the city’s challenges and opportunities, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) appointed Arup in 2008 to understand the project’s feasibility, as well as to support its journey to net-zero. Our specialists, from a range of disciplines, came together to lay sustainable and robust foundations that support the city in creating a comfortable, convenient, and resilient space for future generations.
Innovative sun shading
One of Masdar City’s largest challenges was finding a way to reduce the city’s operational carbon while controlling its heat, as temperatures in the United Arab Emirates can reach over 50°C in the summer. We supported Masdar City in exploring new and more innovative techniques for managing heat and minimising energy use. Currently, it is researching a new sun shading technology in collaboration with Airshade, Metadecor and Arup.
While sun shading systems are typically powered by electric actuators, this technology automatically opens and closes its shades in response to air pressure changes that result from temperature variation. Designed for both new build and retrofit applications, the system consumes no energy and will play an important role in the city’s green objectives. By reducing the need for air conditioning and other active cooling methods, this sun shading innovation will help to cut the city’s carbon emissions.
The technology will also create a unique aesthetic effect for onlookers to enjoy, as well as offering a more comfortable acoustic environment than fans, air conditioning units, and other forms of electrified plant, which are often loud when in operation.
While Masdar City will be the first to use this sun shading approach, it is unlikely to be the last. The technology’s potential for reducing carbon emissions and noise pollution is evident, and its mass-scale adoption could transform the way we design buildings on a global scale.
Sustainability training and development
While Masdar City's physical structures raise the bar for sustainable design, its legacy will also be shaped by the people that operate its infrastructure and logistics. Understanding this, ADFEC asked our team in 2011 to develop a sustainability training workshop for all of its employees. Over the course of three days, we completed a host of training sessions that showed employees how to apply sustainable practices to their day-to-day jobs and responsibilities. With this training, Madar City can ensure that its daily operations are as sustainable as its design principles. Following this, Madar City recently received LEED Gold ratings for operations and maintenance for three of its older buildings.
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