Masdar City (the “source city”), in United Arab Emirates, It is one of the most ambitious projects of recent years: designed by the Archistar Norman Foster, This city on paper will be completely sustainable and thanks to a large photovoltaic plant, solar panels On the facades of the buildings, construction materials at zero impact on the environment. Great challenges await designers to enhance the natural resources of the territory: the nature of the soil, sandy and the surrounding environment subject to strong winds, requires the adoption of cutting -edge engineering solutions. The name was not chosen at random, given that Masdar (مصدر) in Arabic means “source” and it is precisely the name that explains, in all respects, the spirit with which this city of the future has been designed.
The characteristics of Masdar City
The project of Masdar City It is that of an eco-city that will rise in the middle of the Abu Dhabi desert on an area of 6,400,000 square metersof which the 30% intended for residential use, which cost well 22 billion dollars (2024 data), and which will host well 50,000 inhabitants. It will also be built 19 buildings for commercial use and a university, the Masdar Institute of Technology. The plant will be developed according to the lines of a perfect square. The 2023 data already speak of 5,000 People who already live in Masdar City.
A dream, you say. But no, because the project, which began in 2009will see in 2025 The end of the construction sites and the beginning, therefore, of the life cycle of a city that is defined, not surprisingly, “intelligent”.
Masdar City: a source of sustainable and renewable energy
The true ambition of the project signed by the Archistar Norman Foster + Partner’son commission of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is to build a city completely sustainable, Zero pollution almost zero pollution, equipped with technologies capable of exploiting solar thermal energy for electricity and water purification, with zero emissions and almost zero impact on the environment.
As already mentioned, Masdar City provides for the use ofsolar energythanks to a gigantic photovoltaic central and solar panels integrated in all buildings in the urban center. In particular, the construction of this huge photovoltaic central has represented the first step of the entire project, and, to date, production is expected of 40000 megawatt of clean energy only. This control unit develops on an area of 21 hectares, and will have a peak enhance of Ben 10 MW. It is expected that, with photovoltaic technology with subtle film, the plant produces 170 GWh of energy per year. Thanks to this important engineering work, it is expected that eco-city avoid the issue of approx 15,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. The Madar City photovoltaic park will develop on an area of 55 hectares.
The entire needs of waterfallwill be covered with the draft directly from the sea. The water, once collected, desalized and filtered, will be made available to the community. The draft and desection system provided in the project will use the technology of the reverse osmosis, which is already present in the city such as Abu Dhabi, will be equipped with a nominal scope of 10,000 /day. The clean energy of Masdar City will also be provided by the solar panels that will be installed and integrated on all buildings, roofs and facades. In this sense, therefore, the imprint of CO emissions is considerably reduced2 in the air.
Another innovative element of this project is the 99% recycling of all waste produced inside the city, while that remaining 1% is expected to end up in special composting and waste -to -energy plants.
How do you move inside Masdar City? Green shuttles
Just to reduce the impact on the environment, no means of transport will be used within the city perimeter that works with the use of fuel. In the city, residents will be able to rely on a very dense network of pedestrian paths, cycle paths and an innovative and modern system of public transport on magnetic rail called Personal Rapid Transit. Behind this project there is an Italian team, which has developed both the structure and the software that manages transport.
The system works with capsulescalls podable to transport up to 4 passengers, who will follow a path with magnets planted on the ground every 4 meters: the passenger goes up, type the destination, pay and the software calculates the fastest route. The maximum speed is of 40 km/hThe realization costs are however high. Making a single kilometer will cost 10-15 million dollars.
Engineering and architectural challenges
From the engineering point of view, one of the first criticality It is that relating to geotechnical aspects. The desert ground It is in fact subject to peculiar behaviors, and this involves the need, for example, to design foundations of buildings that guarantee great Handbook resistance which could represent a danger to structural safety. Solutions such as audiences of foundation They guarantee a distribution of the loads of the building on a large and homogeneous surface. Even the need to improve the soil, compacting it and adding geotesils it represents a further challenge for engineers. A further problem is that relating to attackers present in the sand, capable of corrode prematurely the concrete. For example, it could be remedied by using concrete classes integrated with materials capable of resisting corrosion.
Another problem is the wind. The desert environment is characterized by strong sand storms and also the horizontal loads exercised by the wind on the structures must be considered by the designers. A valid solution, certainly cheap, is to design buildings that do not develop too much in height. In this case, the surface exposed to the wind is less, and the structure suffers from less than the horizontal accidental loads exercised by the wind action. Think that the horizontal force exerted by a wind traveling a 40m/son a high building 20 mcan get to more than 150 kn according to an approximate estimate.
