Masdar, the city itself is a series of car parks, augmented with lush planting, many of the car parks seem to be closed off, probably because they are already full. Eventually a car park with vacant spaces does present itself, so having found a space, it is off in search of the Personal Rapid Transport, the PRT, from images in the Masdar Brochure these seem reminiscent of the JohnnyCab from the 1984 movie Total Recall. Walking towards the buildings sitting on the concrete podium, there is no sign of a Johnnycab or a terminal where to meet them.
The first building is the Siemens building, one of the major players in the work of Masdar, some of there projects are not in the UAE, in fact one of them is the London Array, the world’s largest wind farm located outside the Thames estuary. A lot of suits seem to be heading that way, to the Seimens building, not the Thames Estuary, and it seems a bit of a closed shop. So I head up through the covered plaza onto the raised podium into the Masdar Institute, which is a university campus acting as a satellite to Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT). The campus forms the heart of the city the buildings designed by Foster and Partners, in fact the entire master plan for the city is devised by Foster, an experiment in achieving a zero carbon city in probably one of the most difficult climatic conditions on Earth.
The campus comprises laboratories researching advances in renewable energy: Solar, Wind, Tidal. The Knowledge base which is the university Library, Student accommodation, in the distinctive red precast blocks that look as though they have been sculpted out of clay and fired to become terracotta. Some of the screens are adorned with UAE flags as students try to assert their identity on the development. At podium level, there are signs of a village coming to life, posters on the inside of the storefront glazing announce the arrival of Organic Cafe, and other restaurants. One that is operational Caribou Coffee, a lively environment with students and tutors sitting outside enjoying coffee and pastries in the external environment where in the car park the temperature registered 34 degrees Celcsuis, the shaded courtyards really do make a difference. The courtyards shown bare in the brochure are occupied with shrub planting and trees and are alive with the sound of birds singing.
Wandering through the network of courtyards, considerably cooler than outside, the view up between the buildings, a narrow alley with a jagged top, solar panels on the top of the buildings serve the dual function of generating power and reducing cooling load through preventing direct solar radiation from landing on the roof. Steps lead down into a sunken courtyard, shaded by planting, is what looks very much like a PRT terminal, the automatic doors open to a large concourse space that is covered in plastic sheet, looking very much like work in progress, that will make this a major PRT terminal in the site.
Driving around the development, past the solar farm with the vast array of all of the different solar panels available from all manufacturers around the world to the Masdar Office, a kind of portakabin security office, with a solitary security guard who wants to direct me back to the Masdar Institute, I was expecting a visitor centre, probably something akin to the Crystal at Royal Victoria Dock in London, a venue where it is possible to see a model of the master plan and to understand progress that is being made. I suppose for now we have to be content with the website.
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