LAVA Studio to design the city center of Masdar City
EcoFriend
Eco Factor: Sustainable city center for a totally sustainable eco-city in the desert.
Australian studio LAVA has won an international competition to design the center of Masdar,a completely sustainable city in the desert. The design will include acentral plaza, five-star hotel, long stay hotel, convention center,entertainment complex and retail facilities.
Thewinning design from the company includes a public plaza, which isinspired by traditional European cities and can withstand the climateof the Middle East. The design house wanted to create an open plaza,where you could breathe fresh air and see the sky, in an effort topropos real human interaction.
Therequirements tempted the design house to have the plaza with “solarumbrellas”, which could capture solar energy during the day whileproviding shade and can be closed at night releasing the heat up intothe sky and cool the plaza naturally.
Theplan also includes the construction of adaptive building facades, whichcan be altered in angle to offset or maximize solar gain. The plan willalso include roof gardens for on-site food production, energygeneration, water efficiency and reuse of organic food waste.
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