On 9 February at 6.30pm in Abu Dhabi, the Masdar Initiative will break ground on Masdar City, the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city, powered entirely by renewable energy. Leading architects and engineers have come together from around the world to design Masdar City, which will save more than US$2 billion of oil over 25 years and serve as a benchmark for the next generation of green design.
During his keynote address, Masdar's CEO Dr Sultan Al Jaber will announce previously unreleased details on the construction and financing of Masdar City. The event will be culminated by the laying of a "cornerstone." The entire groundbreaking will be offset by solar power reserves produced by Masdar's photovoltaic testing facilities.
This groundbreaking is the first physical step towards creating the home of the Masdar Initiative. The first phase of the city's seven-phase plan is the development of The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) - the world's only graduate school dedicated to renewable energy - developed in collaboration with MIT and scheduled to open in 2009.
Behind the scenes, two of the world’s leading architects, Rem Koolhaas and Norman Foster, have clashed over claims of a “remarkable similarity” between their green city projects.
In the week that Foster & Partners confirmed the sale of a stake in the firm to private equity group 3i, the practice was forced to defend its Masdar City design, because of its resemblance to the neighbouring UAE development RAK Gateway by Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Ras Al Khaimah.
Koolhaas revealed his practice had sought an explanation from Foster’s because of perceived similarities, including scale, shape, sustainable aspects and the grid system both cities will employ.
Although the Dutch architect later stressed there was “no suspicion” of plagiarism, he was keen to point out that his scheme had come first. Foster & Partners responded by issuing a terse statement denying any real similarity between the schemes.
RAK Gateway, which has not been widely publicised, is a 4.5 square kilometre project proposed in Ras Al Khaimah for the RAK Investment Authority as a new town linking the entrace to Ras Al Khaimah from the southern Emirates and onto the picturesque region of Musandam and Oman. It was recently outlined by Koolhaas at the International Design Forum in Dubai.
“We want to establish that we launched this project in November last year,” Koolhaas told the UK media.
“It needed a conversation [with Foster & Partners] about how plausible it was that these similarities could happen,” he said.
Fellow OMA partner Reinier de Graaf said its scheme was the “most radical in the world” in terms of density and its mix of functions.
But a spokeswoman for Foster’s insisted that “apart from the square shape”, there were no similarities between the schemes. She said the firm had no prior knowledge of the OMA project, despite it being shown at Mipim in March 2007.
“Our scheme for a low-rise, carbon-neutral university city for the Masdar Initiative...has drawn inspiration from traditional Arabic walled cities and the 16th century ultradense square cities of Yemen,” she added. Source
During his keynote address, Masdar's CEO Dr Sultan Al Jaber will announce previously unreleased details on the construction and financing of Masdar City. The event will be culminated by the laying of a "cornerstone." The entire groundbreaking will be offset by solar power reserves produced by Masdar's photovoltaic testing facilities.
This groundbreaking is the first physical step towards creating the home of the Masdar Initiative. The first phase of the city's seven-phase plan is the development of The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) - the world's only graduate school dedicated to renewable energy - developed in collaboration with MIT and scheduled to open in 2009.
Behind the scenes, two of the world’s leading architects, Rem Koolhaas and Norman Foster, have clashed over claims of a “remarkable similarity” between their green city projects.
In the week that Foster & Partners confirmed the sale of a stake in the firm to private equity group 3i, the practice was forced to defend its Masdar City design, because of its resemblance to the neighbouring UAE development RAK Gateway by Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Ras Al Khaimah.
Koolhaas revealed his practice had sought an explanation from Foster’s because of perceived similarities, including scale, shape, sustainable aspects and the grid system both cities will employ.
Although the Dutch architect later stressed there was “no suspicion” of plagiarism, he was keen to point out that his scheme had come first. Foster & Partners responded by issuing a terse statement denying any real similarity between the schemes.
RAK Gateway, which has not been widely publicised, is a 4.5 square kilometre project proposed in Ras Al Khaimah for the RAK Investment Authority as a new town linking the entrace to Ras Al Khaimah from the southern Emirates and onto the picturesque region of Musandam and Oman. It was recently outlined by Koolhaas at the International Design Forum in Dubai.
“We want to establish that we launched this project in November last year,” Koolhaas told the UK media.
“It needed a conversation [with Foster & Partners] about how plausible it was that these similarities could happen,” he said.
Fellow OMA partner Reinier de Graaf said its scheme was the “most radical in the world” in terms of density and its mix of functions.
But a spokeswoman for Foster’s insisted that “apart from the square shape”, there were no similarities between the schemes. She said the firm had no prior knowledge of the OMA project, despite it being shown at Mipim in March 2007.
“Our scheme for a low-rise, carbon-neutral university city for the Masdar Initiative...has drawn inspiration from traditional Arabic walled cities and the 16th century ultradense square cities of Yemen,” she added. Source
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