Masdar City
IGA role: Consultancy on softscape & irrigation of phase 1A - MIST
Collaboration: Designed by Foster+Partners, in collaboration with Gillespies, London
Location: UAE
Masdar city is an experimental zero CO2 emission city promoted as the major and most important project in Abu Dhabi.
This 2 x 3km city attracted experts from all over the world. It is set to be the 1st big scale project based on a sustainable approach with the hope that it will pave the way for all new urban planning projects.
The Landscape Strategy starting point is the history of open spaces in the traditional Islamic city. Balancing the desire for shade and green with the limited water resources informs the proposals for a sustainable landscape scheme.
Design guidelines have been provided for the linear parks (‘green fingers’), urban squares, public gardens and private courtyards, concentrating the most intensive use of water for irrigation and water features in the most heavily used areas of the city center.
Rough indicative estimates of irrigation water demands show that a palette of mostly desert planting combined with high quality hard landscapes could provide comfortable public parks and squares in the city using only 1,350m3 of water per day during summer, 850m3 in winter. An additional 175m3 per day, on average, would supply water features through out the city.