Giant solar powered ‘sunflower’ umbrellas, provide moveable shade in the day, store heat, then close and release the heat at night in the plaza of Masdar to create a mediated outdoor plaza inhabitable throughout the year.
LAVA won the international competition to design the centre of the 50,000-person zero carbon, zero waste city.
East and west are fused in the plaza design inspired by both the oasis, as the epicentre of Arabic nomadic life, and the iconic piazza of historical European cities. Conceived as an open spatial experience the plaza is the city’s social epicentre with twenty-four hour access enabled through interactive, heat sensitive technology that activates low intensity lighting and water features in response to pedestrian traffic and mobile phone usage.
The organic forms created by the forces of natural erosion in geographical landmarks such as great canyons and wadis are the design inspiration behind the key buildings in the city centre. These include a plaza, five-star hotel, long stay hotel, a convention centre and entertainment complex and retail facilities.
Other features include building façade angles altered to offset or optimise solar glare, wall surface materials respond to changing temperatures and contain minimal embedded energy, interactive light poles transform the plaza into a three-dimensional interactive media installation, and roof gardens integrate food production, energy generation, water efficiency and the reuse of organic food waste.
Giant solar powered ‘sunflower’ umbrellas, provide moveable shade in the day, store heat, then close and release the heat at night in the plaza of Masdar to create a mediated outdoor plaza inhabitable throughout the year.
LAVA won the international competition to design the centre of the 50,000-person zero carbon, zero waste city.
East and west are fused in the plaza design inspired by both the oasis, as the epicentre of Arabic nomadic life, and the iconic piazza of historical European cities. Conceived as an open spatial experience the plaza is the city’s social epicentre with twenty-four hour access enabled through interactive, heat sensitive technology that activates low intensity lighting and water features in response to pedestrian traffic and mobile phone usage.
The organic forms created by the forces of natural erosion in geographical landmarks such as great canyons and wadis are the design inspiration behind the key buildings in the city centre. These include a plaza, five-star hotel, long stay hotel, a convention centre and entertainment complex and retail facilities.
Other features include building façade angles altered to offset or optimise solar glare, wall surface materials respond to changing temperatures and contain minimal embedded energy, interactive light poles transform the plaza into a three-dimensional interactive media installation, and roof gardens integrate food production, energy generation, water efficiency and the reuse of organic food waste.
The project won a 2009 Cityscape Dubai Award for sustainability and the 2011 Well Tech Award, special mention.
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