Interesting and impressive analysis.
http://theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/257481/why-power-density-matters
Showing posts with label land use/planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label land use/planning. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Scituate turbine talks off to slow start
After more than two months of discussions, neiighbors and the owners of Scituate’s industrial wind turbine have made little progress in settling their differences.
Neighbors have been meeting with Board of Health officials since late September, rallying against the turbine after the structure allegedly started causing health problems to many nearby residents.
Although the Board of Health has formed a Steering Committee consisting of neighbors, turbine owners, and town officials, and despite meetings in October, November, and December, the turbine has kept spinning and discussions within the Steering Committee have been slow going.
“Not withstanding that two members of the Board of Health acknowledged that there is evidence to suggest there is an issue, there has been nothing [done] besides a Steering Committee commissioned,” said Tom Thompson, a spokesperson for the community group. “In the meantime, families like the McKeevers are experiencing health issues….I don’t see how anyone in the community can be pleased with that level of progress.”
The McKeever family, which lives on the Driftway, have even published YouTube videos showing the shadow flicker – a strobe-like effect caused by the blades spinning in sunlight – in their home.
Elsewhere in Scituate, residents have submitted dozens of complaints to the Board of Health, saying that the turbine is causing sleeplessness, dizziness, and headaches.
To get to the bottom of the issue, Board of Health officials plan to commission a study to look at the noise and shadow flicker effects on the neighborhood, to be paid for by the turbine owners.
The scope of that study, and the parameters of the engineering company, will be determined by the recently formed Steering Committee.
However, the Steering Committee has yet to meet, and residents remain frustrated that nothing concrete has been accomplished.
“I don’t think there has been any progress made thus far,” Thompson said.
Issues surrounding the Open Meeting Law had to first be figured out before the group could meet. Additionally scheduling issues with the Director of Health, Jennifer Sullivan, has caused some delays, Thompson said.
“As the head of the staff, she has a significant role, and it makes sense that her inability to attend these meetings or make herself available would have a negative impact on pace,” Thompson said.
Yet according to Gordon Dean, owner of the turbine, the delays in meeting are mostly the fault of the community.
"We’ve tried to be responsive," Dean said. "[At the Monday meeting], Mr. Thompson took responsibility for the fact that there hadn’t been a meeting and nothing presented at this point in time. He said it is on their shoulders. He said he would check at the end of this week how their consultant is doing. …we are waiting. We can't control it if they don’t want to sit down until they have heard from their consultant."
Furthermore, Dean said the Board of Health had been cautious up to this point, which he supported.
Despite delays, the community group hopes to meet before Christmas.
In preparation for that meeting, the community group is forming their scope of work for a potential study, a document that should be ready next week. Dean said that his side has presented possible scopes from consulting firms he had approached to get an initial cost estimate.
The Department of Environmental Protections has also provided the town with a scope of study that is currently taking place in Fairhaven.
"DEP suggested that if town is thinking of using [the study] for enforcement that the final scope should be reviewd by the DEP," Dean said.
At this point, the hope is to finalize a scope of work within the month to put a request for proposal out to bid at the start of the year.
“We would like to have a formal meeting of the Steering Committee to hopefully agree on a scope to be presented to the Board of Health,” Thompson said. “We know the [Board of Health’s] next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 7 and hopefully at that time they will agree on a scope and it will be issued to engineering firms…and we will determine t that time what the next steps are.”
Though there may soon be decisions about what a study will focus on, funding for the study has yet to be determined.
Dean agreed to fund a study looking at the noise of the turbine, but has had yet to publicly say whether Scituate Wind LLC would fund a study including shadow flicker.
Despite this hang-up, Thompson said he isn’t concerned.
“Clearly the issues in play relate to noise and shadow flicker, any engineering study commissioned by the town needs to reflect both of those nuances, or it's not an all encompassing study,” he said.
Yet Dean said a study of shadow flicker had already taken place, and it isn't clear how flicker may play a role in the latest study.
"We’ve already paid for a shadow flicker study, and we don’t understand what people are asking for," Dean said. "It’s an easy mathematical thing based on the sun and the turbine…we just don’t understand what people are suggesting we do differently, so we’re waiting to get a neighborhood proposal on flicker."
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Wheels in the sky: Artist's impression gives stunning vision of Boris' planned elevated London bike network
- First phase of SkyCycle would link Stratford with City of London by 2015
- Commuters expected to pay £1 per journey
- Scheme could cost 'tens of millions of pounds'
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
|
It may have only been a matter of weeks since Mayor of London Boris Johnson was left suspended precariously above the capital in a comical zip wire malfunction during the Olympics.
But Mr Johnson could be looking to take to the skies once again, this time on his bike, as he considers an architect's proposals for a network of elevated cycle paths between London's mainline stations.
Spectacular artist's impressions of what the city's raised cycle network - given a working name of SkyCycle - could look like were released this week along with the first details of the project.
Scroll down for video
London Mayor Boris Johnson is considering architect Sam Martin's designs for SkyCycle, a bike network above the capital's streets. An artist's impression is shown
The scheme is designed to make cycling safer for the increasing numbers choosing to take their bike to work
Drawings showing a futuristic raised glass open-top tunnel, that have drawn comparisons with New York's High Line, could become a reality as soon as 2015.
Sam Martin, 43, the landscape architect who came up with the idea with a colleague two years ago, said discussions between the Mayor and Network Rail were 'going well' since an initial meeting in May and that feasibility studies over potential sites were already underway.
He stressed that plans were at an early stage, but the proposal was focused on commuters who would pay to use the network with an Oyster card.
SkyCycle could become a reality above the streets of London as soon as 2015
Mr Martin, director of Exterior Architecture, who admits to giving up cycling in London because he found it too dangerous added that the raised network was the only option left to expand cycling in London.
He said: 'TfL estimate the number of journeys made by bike will treble to around 1.5 million by 2020. Where are they meant to go? SkyCycle is the next logical step, because you can’t realistically build more cycle lanes on ground level.
'You have to start knocking down buildings and there will always be the problem of traffic. It will be less safe than it is now and you can’t persuade people to get on bikes as it is even if you keep raising taxes on cars.'
He added: 'Boris loves the idea and Network Rail are really positive about it. I sincerely believe it could be the next significant piece of London infrastructure and would transform the capital.
'It has been compared to New York’s High Line, which I am familiar with, but the reality is this is a completely different concept.
'In New York it is mainly pedestrian and primarily for tourists and uses converted disused railway lines.
'We are talking about new infrastructure for commuters that guarantees safety and will be quicker than taking public transport. It is a much more ambitious and expensive.'
The drawings show a bold red and blue design incorporating a helix structure partly encasing the raised platform above London.
Martin believes that a corporate sponsor similar to the Barclays-backed cycle hire scheme would be needed to help fund the project, which he said would cost 'tens of millions of pounds' and take around two years to build.
It is thought the first route could be built on the Olympic regeneration of east London, linking Stratford with the City of London through Liverpool and Fenchurch Street stations but this has yet to be confirmed
It is envisaged that cyclists could pay around £1 per journey, making it significantly cheaper to use than public transport - around the third of the cost of a regular commute.
There would also be the need for more cycle storage and ramps at stations.
Despite suggestions, Martin said the proposed network would not exclusively use old railway lines but would require new infrastructure build alongside or above tracks in some places.
The problem of negotiating with different landowners is to be overcome by using leasing land owned by Network Rail.
The SkyCycle idea has drawn comparisons with New York's High Line, pictured, which uses the city's old railway lines as walkways
Speaking about the idea recently Boris Johnson MP described it as 'very interesting'.
He said: 'There is a proposal, which is very interesting, to hook up mainline stations in London along the side of raised railway tracks, with a new cycle path.'
According to TfL, there were twice the number of cyclists in London in 2010 compared to 2000, sparking numerous campaigns for improvements to make cycling safer in the capital.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198032/SkyCycle-Artists-impression-gives-stunning-vision-Boris-planned-elevated-London-bike-network.html#ixzz25hjBpnlt
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
New Research Finds Urban Form Plays Little Role in Sustainability
Nate Berg
The Atlantic
One need not look far to find a passionate argument that the compact city is the green city. Having more people in a smaller area results in less energy use for transportation purposes, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and greater efficiencies in the use of various resources. Cramming more people into a smaller space makes our cities more sustainable. Or does it? New research published in the spring issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association finds that – unlike today's dominant narrative of the green city – urban form may actually have very little impact on energy use and other measures of sustainability.
Researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, and Leeds looked at three English metropolitan areas of various sizes and ran them through computer models that imposed three different urban forms over the course of 30 years. Each area was modeled as a hyper-dense city with tight restrictions on land use, an urban growth boundary and prioritized transit development, a sprawling, market-driven urban form that had few restrictions on land use, and a middle ground based on English new towns, or those planned suburban-style developments on the outskirts of larger cities. Each urban form – compaction, dispersal, expansion – was modeled on the three areas between the years 2001 and 2031 and evaluated on the basis on 26 different measures of sustainability – from pollution levels to degradation of water systems to the energy consumption of buildings and people. The models showed only very slight differences between the three urban forms.
"To our surprise, if you compare the compact form versus the current trend, the difference in reduced transport by automobile is very minor. And if you allow the city to expand, the increase in the use of the car is only marginal," says Marcial Echenique, a professor at the University of Cambridge Department of Architecture and one of the authors of the report. "If you make the city more compact, it doesn't mean that people will abandon their car. Only 5 percent of people abandon the use of the car. Ninety-five percent carries on using the car, which means there are more cars on the same streets, therefore there is much more congestion and therefore there is much more pollution and no great increase in the reduction of energy."
Echenique says he and his team have been working on this research for about 4 or 5 years, and continued modeling and analysis has only backed up their findings.
"We are not very convinced of the idea that compacting cities will make very much difference in terms of environmental quality. But it will have severe consequences in terms of economics and social issues," Echenique says.
Of particular concern for these researchers is that restricting development to only high-density, urban locations could greatly increase the cost of land and housing, causing both the cost of living and the cost of doing businesses to skyrocket. Echenique worries this will cause cities to become less competitive over the long term.
In terms of reducing the environmental impacts of human development and lifestyle, Echenique says his numbers indicate that we might be better off focusing our effort on improving technology and energy efficiency. He says we'll have a much better chance of reducing the negative impacts of modern living by focusing on automobile technology and reduced energy usage in buildings. He and his team are currently working on research on the effectiveness of focusing on the technology side. Results are expected to publish later this year.
Echenique argues and his research indicates that greater gains can be achieved by making more efficient cars or better insulation for buildings than by trying to reshape the urban landscape."We believe that we can reduce by 50 percent or more the use of energy in a fairly short time, within the next 20 years or so," he says. "It's much more effective than compacting or dispersing cities, because there's only a five percent difference either way."
"Technology offers a much better future than trying to constrain behavior of the market," he says.
The result of this work will likely be somewhat frustrating for urban boosters arguing for an increased emphasis on density and city living. Echenique recognizes that urbanization is underway, especially in developing countries, and that density will likely be the development paradigm in many of these places. But he also observes that urbanization is happening on a metropolitan scale, and that means development is occurring at a variety of densities within a region. Valuing one over the others as the sustainable model is unwise, he argues. He says this research shows that creating sustainable places has little to do with what they look like and far more to do with their energy use.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Mayor Bloomberg announces New York City receives US EPA National Smart Growth Award for PlaNYC programs
| Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced today that New York City has received the 2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in the category of "Overall Excellence" from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the implementation of its PlaNYC programs. Released on Earth Day in 2007, PlaNYC is Mayor Bloomberg's comprehensive sustainability plan to build a greener, greater New York City. PlaNYC endeavors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the City's infrastructure, create open space, and improve air and water quality. |
(Media-Newswire.com) - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced today that New York City has received the 2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in the category of “Overall Excellence” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) for the implementation of its PlaNYC programs. Released on Earth Day in 2007, PlaNYC is Mayor Bloomberg’s comprehensive sustainability plan to build a greener, greater New York City. PlaNYC endeavors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the City’s infrastructure, create open space, and improve air and water quality. The EPA also cited the City’s landmark Street Design Manual, a guide to creating high-quality streets to promote walking; the Zoning for Bike Parking program, which requires new developments to provide secure indoor bike parking; the City’s Active Design Guidelines, which promote the use of active transportation; and the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health ( FRESH ) program, which incentivizes grocery stores in neighborhoods in need of more healthy food stores. EPA presented the award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. to Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Department of City Planning Commissioner Amanda M. Burden, who represented the City at the awards ceremony. “PlaNYC continues to be recognized as a comprehensive strategy that has changed the way we are going to effectively meet the challenges of a growing population and create a greener, greater city – now and for future generations,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We will continue to seek input from New Yorkers as we regularly update the plan, so it continues to evolve with new technology, new innovations and new community needs.” “PlaNYC puts all the pieces together – open space, better transportation, cleaner air and water, and healthier living,” said David Bragdon, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. “It is the multi-disciplinary approach that makes the plan so effective.” “We’ve demonstrated that smart growth principles can work in an older city, retrofitting New York with world class streets, accessible public spaces and a more sustainable and diversified transportation network that gives more commuting options,” said Department of Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “This award is a credit to Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership, defying the status quo and preparing New York City for the certainty of a growing population and the uncertainty of our economic and environmental future.” “By supporting the Mayor’s goals for increased mobility, equity and quality of life, the FRESH program and Zoning for Bike Parking contribute to making our city healthier and more sustainable,” said Department of City Planning Commissioner Burden. “I am proud to be part of a team of agencies that are working to ensure that New York City continues to be a model of Smart Growth for generations to come.” “We are excited that EPA recognizes the City’s collaborative and synergistic approach to addressing our leading health and environmental concerns,” said Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Thomas A. Farley. “We have been working in partnership across City government on initiatives that can simultaneously promote health and environmental sustainability through measures such as increasing opportunities for active transportation and increasing fresh and healthy food options over highly processed and packaged foods.” “Design of the built environment can have a crucial and positive influence on improving our environment and public health,” said Department of Design and Construction Commissioner David J. Burney, FAIA. “Since the City’s Active Design Guidelines were issued, they have been downloaded thousands of times by people from across the nation and around the world. As cities grow, ‘active design’ will help make cities healthier and more sustainable places to live and work.” PlaNYC established 127 sustainability initiatives to create a greener, greater New York by creating more green space, reducing congestion and improving air and water quality. New York is one of the oldest and most densely populated cities in the country and smart growth requires retrofitting the existing infrastructure to operate more efficiently and facilitate healthier lifestyles. PlaNYC was developed with input from New York City residents about what they saw as the priorities for a sustainable future and the plan is updated regularly. The Administration is currently conducting community conversations in locations across the five boroughs to gather input for the 2011 update PlaNYC, which is the first update to the plan and will be released on Earth Day 2011. One of the goals of PlaNYC was to create a more sustainable transportation network by providing more commuting options for New Yorkers, while improving accessibility in underserved neighborhoods. Since PlaNYC’s launch, more than 250 lane-miles of bicycle lanes have been installed, making cycling a safer, more appealing way to commute and leading to an estimated 88 percent growth in commuter cycling since 2006. PlaNYC also promised to initiate Bus Rapid Transit service to improve commutes along some of the City’s busiest streets, and the service has been established along Fordham Road in the Bronx and on First and Second Avenues in Manhattan, with travel times improving by as much as 20 percent. PlaNYC laid the foundation for new partnerships among City agencies to develop a comprehensive smart growth strategy that incorporates feedback from community groups and the private sector, and has practical applications in New York City’s neighborhoods. The Department of Transportation’s Street Design Manual provides guidance to both the public and private sectors on all aspects of street design, with the goal of creating world-class streets. The manual details engineering materials that can be used in design to make streets safer, while also facilitating sustainable modes of transportation and was published in 2009 based on the findings of an inter-agency task force convened to address needs and opportunities in a broad range of street conditions. The City’s Active Design Guidelines were unveiled in 2010 and developed among several agencies including the Departments of City Planning, Design and Construction, Health and Mental Hygiene, and Transportation. The guidelines provide evidence-based and best practice strategies for supporting active, healthy and environmentally sustainable lifestyles in communities across the city with the ultimate goal of combating obesity and diabetes, two of the city’s most rapidly growing public health concerns. These documents are among the multi-agency initiatives launched to integrate smart growth concepts into City policies and projects, and simultaneously improve health, environmental sustainability and universal accessibility. The City’s Zoning for Bike Parking program, developed by the Department of City Planning, will facilitate a more active lifestyle by requiring enclosed and secure bicycle parking for new multi-family residential, community facility, and commercial buildings. Providing bike parking in the home and workplace will increase the transportation options available to New Yorkers, help people bike to work, move around the city and keep fit. The program will help alleviate traffic congestion and pollution, and yield long term health benefits for New Yorkers. This is the most comprehensive bike parking zoning requirement of any dense U.S. city and will cultivate a greener and healthier urban environment. The program is part of a coordinated multi-agency effort with the Department of Transportation to promote New Yorkers’ use of bicycles, which is a key component of Mayor Bloomberg’s strategy for a cleaner, healthier city. Developed in close coordination with the City Council, the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health ( FRESH ) program is the City’s effort to aid development of new supermarkets and the expansion of current stores to provide fresh produce in neighborhoods that lack healthy food options. The initiative provides and promotes zoning and financial incentives to property owners, developers and grocery store operators and is the first program in the nation to combine zoning and financial incentives for stores that sell healthy food options and to offer them in multiple neighborhoods. EPA created the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in 2002 to recognize exceptional approaches to development that protect the environment, foster economic vitality, and enhance quality of life. Over the past nine years, almost 700 communities in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have applied to EPA for consideration for this award. In addition to presenting the annual awards, EPA’s Smart Growth Program helps America's communities turn their visions of the future into reality through research, tools, partnerships, case studies, grants, and technical assistance. The EPA bestows awards recognizing outstanding examples of sustainable communities across the country. http://media-newswire.com/release_1135513.html |
Friday, October 15, 2010
Liverpool looks to the future as Shanghai EXPO ends
Oct 15 2010by Merseyside News, Liverpool Daily Post
LIVERPOOL is laying long term plans to tackle the challenges of becoming a low carbon city, regeneration chief Max Steinberg told an international conference in China today.
Mr Steinberg, chief executive of Liverpool Vision, the organisation spearheading the city's involvement in the World Expo in Shanghai, told an urban regeneration forum: "Nothing short of a completely new model for the development of sustainable cities is required."
Mr Steinberg and council leader Joe Anderson gave keynote speeches at the forum, which reflected on the regeneration of the twin cities of Shanghai and Liverpool, the parallels between them and the lessons to be learned from each other's challenges.
"We have already achieved much in a short time, but we know we can make even more progress," said Mr Steinberg.
"Low carbon cities of the future will demand even more creativity from politicians and professionals, even more collective action globally, nationally and locally."
He said it was difficult for politicians to be risk takers.
"Public leadership is generally short term, and there is no reward for long-term decision-making," he added. "But in Liverpool we are thinking long-term - long term regeneration, long term improvement for our communities, long term commitment to playing our part in the UK's and world's future.
"We are going to have to find new ways to plan, build and govern our city. We must reduce our impact on the environment and increase our residents' quality of life."
He said that, far from being a threat to competitiveness, this was the key to Liverpool's future ability to compete in a world in which the sustainable use of resources and environmental technologies would become increasingly important.
Cllr Anderson told the conference that Liverpool and Shanghai faced many similar challenges in terms of regeneration, and of the importance of protecting the cities' heritage as they develop.
He thanked the city of Shanghai for the opportunity to take part in the World Expo, adding: "We cannot yet calculate the economic value of our place at World Expo, but we already know that relationships forged in Shanghai will continue to pay dividends in the future.
"And our international drive does not end with the close of the event. I am determined that there will be a lasting legacy – long after our Pavilion has shut its doors. "Both Liverpool and Shanghai are cities with a great past – but we share an even bigger future."
Waste to Resource: Seattle Moving on Eco-Industrial Districts
By Bill DiBenedetto | October 11th, 2010
The “eco-industrial district” concept in Seattle is moving – slowly – from concept to sustainable reality.The Metropolitan King County Council last month adopted a proposal that calls for a partnership with the City of Seattle (which resides in King County) to create Eco-Industrial Districts in the city and throughout the county.
The idea is to assist development in Seattle’s industrial core areas, such as the SoDo district or in the Duwamish River corridor in south Seattle by coordinating various public sector initiatives on sustainable communities.
That coordination is an opportunity for local industries to create green jobs and share resources that will benefit and business and the environment, said County Councilmember Larry Phillips, who sponsored the partnership measure. Development of EIDs “will advance our regional vision for land and resource conservation, energy efficiency and shared energy resources, recreational amenities, and transit access,” he said.
EIDs can vary in size, from a few properties to a large industrial community, within which manufacturers located in close proximity use waste products from one firm as an input resource for a neighboring firm, and where workforce housing, recreation and public transit are located nearby.
The districts help create sustainable communities by using waste byproducts, maximizing resources, promoting green job creation, applying sustainable manufacturing practices, and creating livable communities.
Under an EID partnership, the jurisdictions are hoping to “identify opportunities for innovation and collaboration within Seattle’s industrial center, provide public sector support for those innovations that may face legislative barriers and partner with industrial companies to support existing businesses and attract new business to the region,” a King County statement said.
The county manages regional utilities including transit, solid waste and wastewater treatment, and has resources – otherwise known as waste byproducts – to offer for this effort, including heat from wastewater trunk lines, treated wastewater effluent, mixed municipal waste and solid waste recyclables.
The legislation calls for the County Executive to coordinate these resources to ensure that they will be available to interested cities as they move forward and develop EIDs or other facilities that promote the sustainable use of resources and development of green communities in urban areas throughout King County.
Seattle’s City Council is working with the Seattle Office of Economic Development and the Mayor to draft an EID scope of work this fall.
It’s a potentially far-reaching step towards a more sustainable approach to developing the city’s most industrialized – and polluted – areas.
A likely first candidate is the Duwamish River corridor, which is home to an EPA Superfund site as well some grandiose and expensive development ideas from environmentalists and community activists. The industrial district along the Duwamish River valley and surrounding neighborhoods is one of the largest contiguous industrial areas in the U.S., encompassing about 4,000 companies and 70,000 employees.
An EID program there would strengthen the city’s industrial core while improving the environmental quality of the Duwamish, said Council President Richard Conlin.
Can clean and green coexist with industrial grit?
Maybe Seattle’s template will show the way to a new way of thinking about grunge.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Avoiding urban sprawl could reduce pollution, boost economy: report
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Avoiding+urban+sprawl+could+reduce+pollution+boost+economy+report/3623127/story.html#ixzz11aOhRNtX
Friday, October 01, 2010
CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises
Duncan Chard for The New York Times
The terra-cotta-like exterior of a residential building in Masdar, a visionary city being built 20 miles from Abu Dhabi. More Photos »
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: September 25, 2010
Blueprints for the MideastABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Back in 2007, when the government here announced its plan for “the world’s first zero-carbon city” on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, many Westerners dismissed it as a gimmick — a faddish follow-up to neighboring Dubai’s half-mile-high tower in the desert and archipelago of man-made islands in the shape of palm trees.
Nigel Young/Foster + Partners
A modern interpretation of the Arabian wind tower is used to cool the plaza areas at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. More Photos »
Designed by Foster & Partners, a firm known for feats of technological wizardry, the city, called Masdar, would be a perfect square, nearly a mile on each side, raised on a 23-foot-high base to capture desert breezes. Beneath its labyrinth of pedestrian streets, a fleet of driverless electric cars would navigate silently through dimly lit tunnels. The project conjured both a walled medieval fortress and an upgraded version of the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland.
Well, those early assessments turned out to be wrong. By this past week, as people began moving into the first section of the project to be completed — a 3 ½-acre zone surrounding a sustainability-oriented research institute — it was clear that Masdar is something more daring and more noxious.
Norman Foster, the firm’s principal partner, has blended high-tech design and ancient construction practices into an intriguing model for a sustainable community, in a country whose oil money allows it to build almost anything, even as pressure grows to prepare for the day the wells run dry. And he has worked in an alluring social vision, in which local tradition and the drive toward modernization are no longer in conflict — a vision that, at first glance, seems to brim with hope.
But his design also reflects the gated-community mentality that has been spreading like a cancer around the globe for decades. Its utopian purity, and its isolation from the life of the real city next door, are grounded in the belief — accepted by most people today, it seems — that the only way to create a truly harmonious community, green or otherwise, is to cut it off from the world at large.
Mr. Foster is the right man for this kind of job. A lifelong tech buff who collaborated with Buckminster Fuller, he talks about architecture in terms of high performance, as if his buildings were sports cars. And to some extent his single-minded focus on the craft of architecture — its technological and material aspects — has been a convenient way of avoiding trickier discussions about its social impact. (It’s hard to imagine Mr. Foster embroiled in the kind of public battles over modern architecture that his former partner, Richard Rogers, has fought with the traditionalist Prince Charles in London.)
Not that Mr. Foster doesn’t have ideals. At Masdar, one aim was to create an alternative to the ugliness and inefficiency of the sort of development — suburban villas slathered in superficial Islamic-style décor, gargantuan air-conditioned malls — that has been eating away the fabric of Middle Eastern cities for decades.
He began with a meticulous study of old Arab settlements, including the ancient citadel of Aleppo in Syria and the mud-brick apartment towers of Shibam in Yemen, which date from the 16th century. “The point,” he said in an interview in New York, “was to go back and understand the fundamentals,” how these communities had been made livable in a region where the air can feel as hot as 150 degrees.
Among the findings his office made was that settlements were often built on high ground, not only for defensive reasons but also to take advantage of the stronger winds. Some also used tall, hollow “wind towers” to funnel air down to street level. And the narrowness of the streets — which were almost always at an angle to the sun’s east-west trajectory, to maximize shade — accelerated airflow through the city.
With the help of environmental consultants, Mr. Foster’s team estimated that by combining such approaches, they could make Masdar feel as much as 70 degrees cooler. In so doing, they could more than halve the amount of electricity needed to run the city. Of the power that is used, 90 percent is expected to be solar, and the rest generated by incinerating waste (which produces far less carbon than piling it up in dumps). The city itself will be treated as a kind of continuing experiment, with researchers and engineers regularly analyzing its performance, fine-tuning as they go along.
But Mr. Foster’s most radical move was the way he dealt with one of the most vexing urban design challenges of the past century: what to do with the car. Not only did he close Masdar entirely to combustion-engine vehicles, he buried their replacement — his network of electric cars — underneath the city. Then, to further reinforce the purity of his vision, he located almost all of the heavy-duty service functions — a 54-acre photovoltaic field and incineration and water treatment plants — outside the city.
The result, Mr. Foster acknowledged, feels a bit like Disneyland. “Disneyland is attractive because all the service is below ground,” he said. “We do the same here — it is literally a walled city. Traditional cars are stopped at the edges.”
Driving from downtown Abu Dhabi, 20 miles away, you follow a narrow road past an oil refinery and through desolate patches of desert before reaching the blank concrete wall of Masdar and find the city looming overhead. (Mr. Foster plans to camouflage the periphery behind fountains and flora.) From there a road tunnels through the base to a garage just underneath the city’s edge.
Stepping out of this space into one of the “Personal Rapid Transit” stations brings to mind the sets designed by Harry Lange for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” You are in a large, dark hall facing a row of white, pod-shaped cars lined up in rectangular glass bays. (The cars’ design was based on Buckminster Fuller’s proposal for a compact urban vehicle, the D-45, which helps explain their softly contoured, timelessly futuristic silhouettes.) Daylight spills down a rough concrete wall behind them, hinting at the life above.
The first 13 cars of a proposed fleet of hundreds were being tested the day I visited, but as soon as the system is up, within a few weeks, a user will be able to step into a car and choose a destination on an LCD screen. The car will then silently pull into traffic, seeming to drive itself. (There are no cables or rails.)
It’s only as people arrive at their destination that they will become aware of the degree to which everything has been engineered for high-function, low-consumption performance. The station’s elevators have been tucked discreetly out of sight to encourage use of a concrete staircase that corkscrews to the surface. And on reaching the streets — which were pretty breezy the day I visited — the only way to get around is on foot. (This is not only a matter of sustainability; Mr. Foster’s on-site partner, Austin Relton, told me that obesity has become a significant health issue in this part of the Arab world, largely because almost everyone drives to avoid the heat.)
The buildings that have gone up so far come in two contrasting styles. Laboratories devoted to developing new forms of sustainable energy and affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are housed in big concrete structures that are clad in pillowlike panels of ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene, a super-strong translucent plastic that has become fashionable in contemporary architecture circles for its sleek look and durability. Inside, big open floor slabs are designed for maximum flexibility.
The residential buildings, which for now will mostly house professors, students and their families, use a more traditional architectural vocabulary. To conform to Middle Eastern standards of privacy, Mr. Foster came up with an undulating facade of concrete latticework based on the mashrabiya screens common in the region. The latticework blocks direct sunlight and screens interiors from view, while the curves make for angled views to the outside, so that apartment dwellers never look directly into the windows of facing buildings. Such concerns are also reflected in the layout of the neighborhood. Like many Middle Eastern university campuses, it is segregated by sex, with women and families living at one end and single men at the other. Each end has a small public plaza, which acts as its social heart.
Still, one wonders, despite the technical brilliance and the sensitivity to local norms, how a project like Masdar can ever attain the richness and texture of a real city. Eventually, a light-rail system will connect it to Abu Dhabi, and street life will undoubtedly get livelier as the daytime population grows to a projected 90,000. (Although construction on a second, larger phase has already begun, the government-run developer, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, refuses to give a completion date for the city, saying only that it will grow at its own pace.)
But the decision of who gets to live and work in Masdar, as in any large-scale development, will be outside the architect’s control. That will be decided by the landlord, in this case, the government.
And even if it were to become a perfect little urban melting pot, Masdar would have only limited relevance to the world most people live in. Mr. Foster’s inspired synthesis of ancient and new technologies could well have applications elsewhere; it should be looked at closely by other architects. But no one would argue that a city of a few million or more can be organized with such precision, and his fantasy world is only possible as a meticulously planned community, built from the ground up and of modest size.
What Masdar really represents, in fact, is the crystallization of another global phenomenon: the growing division of the world into refined, high-end enclaves and vast formless ghettos where issues like sustainability have little immediate relevance.
That’s obviously not how Mr. Foster sees it. He said the city was intended to house a cross-section of society, from students to service workers. “It is not about social exclusion,” he added.
And yet Masdar seems like the fulfillment of that idea. Ever since the notion that thoughtful planning could improve the lot of humankind died out, sometime in the 1970s, both the megarich and the educated middle classes have increasingly found solace by walling themselves off inside a variety of mini-utopias.
This has involved not only the proliferation of suburban gated communities, but also the transformation of city centers in places like Paris and New York into playgrounds for tourists and the rich. Masdar is the culmination of this trend: a self-sufficient society, lifted on a pedestal and outside the reach of most of the world’s citizens.
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