Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion
Posted on 10/20/2012 by Juan Cole
A tour of Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates — the world’s first city powered entirely by green energy. Video by Robert Llewellyn, “Fully Charged.”
Here is the video:
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Posted in Energy, Environment | 2 Comments | Print
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About your Masdar video. The original design by Foster+Partners called for the buildings to be built on a platform and for automated vehicles to use the undercroft to provide circulation service throughout the city. However, cost cutting scrapped the platform idea so the undercroft won’t be there and the automated vehicles can’t get around at the pedestrian level very well as the streets are very narrow and not well connected, there is no space in the design for parking them and charging them. A redesign is probably needed but there is no information about it – hope you can get to the bottom of this problem.
A compact pedestrian city is even better and more energy efficient.