Who knew? Now you can get sushi and organic food delivered to your home, from Masdar City. But there is a caveat. When we think of Masdar City, we think of solar power and funky space-buildings. We think of desert and withering heat. And perhaps we dream that one day this city will be completed […]
Nabito Architects in Barcelona are negotiating with Abu Dhabi engineers to build these stunning sustainable skyscrapers. Dubai’s skyline is going to look increasingly dull compared to what is planned for Abu Dhabi. In addition to Masdar City and the Lunar Cubit energy-generating pyramids that won the Land Art Generator Initiative’s 2010 design competition, a new […]
Green Sheik and Michael Braungart at green event in Abu Dhabi. One of the most respected environmental activists in the Middle East, no sustainability conference is complete without H.H. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Nuaimi’s stamp of approval. So it is an enormous compliment that the “Green Sheikh” attended an event co-hosted by Abu Dhabi’s leading […]
These beautiful Palmwood® gates at the entrance of Masdar City help keep the hot desert winds at bay. What should the gates to the world’s most talked about carbon-neutral city look like? For starters, they should be built out of a material that is sustainable, and they should blend in with Foster & Partner’s high-tech/ancient […]
Masdar - the Eco-city - is home to the hottest and most energy efficient transport system in the world: The Personal Rapid Transit (pod car). The PRT is fast, powered by lithium batteries, driverless, can carry up to 10 people safely and looks oh so beautiful in the gleaming sun... Check out more here.
Minneapolis Rollerblade Inventor Wants Masdar Biking Monorail Skyways Why can’t getting around be as safe and comfortable as sitting in a car, and yet be something of a workout too? Scott Olson, the athletic Minnesota inventor of Rollerblades and the Rowbike, has come up with yet another way to do just that, and his company […]
The Zayed Future Energy Prize is like the Nobel Prize for solutions to climate change. An extremely select jury of international experts in climate change solutions, headed up by IPPC chairman, Nobel prizewinner Dr Pachauri, decided that the Danish wind giant Vestas should be the winner of this year’s Zayed Future Energy Prize, which honors […]
Iceland’s President Olafur Grimsson at Masdar conference:”Renewable Energy is the way of the future” Iceland is a small country which recently came into “prominence” when one of its volcanoes caused a huge volcanic ash cloud to ground commercial airline flights for nearly a month last spring. But all this potential energy is also resulting in […]
Clinton’s visit came one week before Abu Dhabi hosts its annual World Future Energy Summit. Green Prophet has presented a number of negative assessments of Masdar and Abu Dhabi’s ambitious efforts to build a carbon-free city. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to have missed or dismissed these reports. During a visit to Masdar City […]
Since the hype clearly failed, Masdar and Foster and Partners have turned to the nuts and bolts of building a sustainable city instead. Masdar and Foster and Partners (F&P) have eaten several servings of humble pie in the last few months. After a barrage of criticism related to the costs and failed expectations of Abu […]
Masdar students will soon be able to take a break from their hot, clean energy studies for a workout and a swim. Despite widespread criticism leveled at its organizers (which has simmered down since reaching its zenith with a New York Times article earlier this year), the Masdar City project plods on. Still in the […]
An interview that is supposed to shed light on Masdar’s real progress does little more than reorganize the project’s rhetoric Following a recent New York Times article that at once lauds and mocks the infamous Masdar Project, and a new Masdar Institute student’s claim that she feels like she is “living on a spaceship,” Middle […]
American engineering student Laura Stupin spends her first week on Masdar’s Mothership. Never mind the trumped up press releases that claimed for Masdar a zero carbon, zero waste, car-free city, or the derisive press that followed. And forget the original ambition to complete such unrealistic goals by 2015. Fast-forward instead to October, 2010, just over […]
“Cancer City”: Even if Masdar City does materialize against all odds, Nicolai Ouroussoff doubts its relevance to the rest of the sustainable world. The New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has diverted the Masdar City argument from a project that might not lift off – the laughing stock of the Middle East – to something […]
Windstalks are an interesting concept; but will they really work? Wind turbines, some of them as large as commercial airliners, have been receiving their fair share of attention recently as being viable producers of electricity in the Middle East and other regional countries, including Turkey. But now, a new wind energy concept being planned for […]