Friday 12/11

Today we did not go to the conference.  Instead, we went to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.  To get there we had to take a train and then a ferry, which was entertaining. 

View from the ferry

In an effort to find ways to handle increasing human populations, many architects are experimenting with sustainable city designs. We visited an exhibit in the Louisiana museum that had displayed such designs. It was called “Green Architecture for the Future.”

One particularly striking example of an exhibited sustainable city was the city of Masdar, designed for desert living in the United Arab Emirates by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company. This city, which is currently being built, is designed to be carbon neutral and produce zero waste. One of its most important elements is passive design. The low-rise, high-density neighborhoods increase shading, which helps reduce energy use. The city is oriented in a northeast/southeast direction, which takes advantage of cool breezes, and wind towers and green cover shadings also help to cool the city.

Energy use in all areas of the city has been closely considered. To achieve carbon neutrality, energy use practices in Masdar will promote efficiency and limited use. Another benefit of the city’s high-density is ease of movement with significantly reduced environmental impact. One transportation method will be personal rapid transit, powered by electricity. The stations will be easily accessible to everyone because the city is so compact and not built for automobiles, like most modern cities. Most of the energy (90%) used in Masdar will be harvested from sunlight through photovoltaic technology.

For water, Masdar uses sustainable water generation. This minimizes the need for desalination practices, although they will still be necessary. Approximately 60% of the water used will be recycled water. Waste in the city is moved through streams that flow throughout the city, and it is segregated and recycled. Waste that is biodegradable will be composed, and energy will be removed from other materials. Less than 2% of the produced waste will end up in landfills.

A model of the city

Masdar’s limited energy use practices are very well planned and probably its best feature. There are, however, potential problems with the overall design. For instance, food is produced in other areas and transported into the city. This creates avoidable energy use and a necessarily constant inflow into the system, which generates increasing amounts of waste that eventually may be produced more quickly than they can be recycled. Another problem is that there is very little intended natural space within the city. This could create disconnect between people and nature. Also, people may be unwilling to change their lifestyles so drastically, for example, giving up automobiles. Only once the city is actually built and functioning can the magnitude of this wary attitude be fully assessed.

Being the first city of its kind, Masdar’s success, or lack of, will be important in the future of sustainable city design. Future designers will be able to learn from this first attempt.



This afternoon/evening I went shopping with Evelina and her mom at the mall.  It was fun, and I was able to get some Christmas presents.  The stores, like I expected, are not very different from those in America.