CASE STUDY

MASDAR
INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY
 MASDAR INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY
Architect: Norman Foster
Landscape Architect: Gillespies
Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor
Acoustic Engineer: Sandy Brown
Built in: 2007 - 2010
Built-up Area: 63,000 sq.m
Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Inauguration: Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed-Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu
Dhabi
ARCHITECTURE:
ARCHITECT: AR. NORMAN FOSTER
The building design includes passive strategies that
enhance energy and good behavior are presented as
a reinterpretation of Traditional Arab
Architecture(Vernacular Architecture); and also
influenced by Post-modern Architecture.
AIM:
The foster+partners wanted to designed ‘masdar
institute campus’ has officially opened as the first solar
powered building in Masdar city, Abu Dhabi.
The institute is devoted to researching sustainability
and will be used as a pilot test bed for the green
technologies that will be explored for implementation
in future buildings within the city.
MASTER CITY PLAN
 SITE PLAN

• The Masdar Institute, the first phase, inaugurated in late

2010 and designed by Norman Foster in Abu Dhabi, is
devoted to research on renewable energy and
sustainability.
• Fully stocked with solar energy behavior will serve as
reference for the construction of the emerging progressive
Masdar. Graduates of the Institute community up the first
• The facades of the buildings are oriented so that they can
provide as much shade as possible in an area where
temperatures can reach 50 degrees, the wind while
protecting the rest of the interior construction.
• Facades are designed to respond to their orientation and
photovoltaic installations on every roof are combined with
carefully positioned photovoltaic panels to shade streets
and buildings.
• The buildings are oriented to provide optimum shade and
reduce cooling loads and shaded colonnades at podium
level bring benefits through high insulation and exposed
thermal mass. Transitional thermal spaces are also
integrated – these mediate between internal and external
zones and are conditioned primarily by buoyancy-driven
natural ventilation and the effects of thermal mass.
• The perforations for light and shade are based on the
patterns found in the traditional architecture of Islam.
GROUND FLOOR PLAN

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

SECOND FLOOR PLAN

ROOF FLOOR PLAN

 SECTIONS

SPACES
The campus will consist of a main building, a study center, laboratories and
four blocks to house students.
HOSTELS
At the time of his inauguration, had only built one of the four blocks planned,
the relevant departments to one, two or three bedrooms that allows a
number of students between 600 and 800. These apartments built in low
high-density blocks, create a balance between social environment and the
training lab. In this first stage also included a mosque, an auditorium and a
sports center.
SOLAR PARKS
Within the estate there is the ten-megawatt solar park that offers 60% more
energy than is consumed in the Masdar Institute. Excess energy is stored or
transported to the city of Abu Dhabi.
OBJECTIVE
A 10 megawatt solar
field within the
masterplan site provides
60% more energy than is
consumed by the
institute, with the
remaining energy being
fed back to the Abu
Dhabi grid. The campus,
which consists of a main
building, a knowledge
center and students’
quarters, will use
significantly less energy
and water than the
average building in the
UAE. Around 30% of the
campus’s energy will be
covered by over 5,000
m2 of photovoltaic
panels on the roof, with
75% of hot water also
being heated by the sun.
LIBRARY
The institute’s buildings are the product of in-depth
environmental analyses, including solar studies, wind tunnel
testing, and energy simulation. Even the library, enclosed by a
zinc-clad, glue-laminated structure shaped like a helmet, is the
result of such investigation, rather than architectural caprice,
say the designers. The form is the outcome of a desire to
maximize energy collection from roof-mounted PVs while
shielding the interior from direct sun but giving students a
view of a linear park. Except for undulant balconies, the other
structures are rectilinear and set as close as 10 feet apart.
Their ground floors step back under colonnades at the edge of
short streets that turn and change direction.
TRANSFER
To access the Masdar Institute , it is
accessed by 10 personal rapid
transit (PRT) cars that are being run
as a pilot project from the City
perimeter to the undercroft below
the building. This project signals
Abu Dhabi’s commitment to
creating an international centre to
pioneer sustainable technologies
within an environment which is
itself carbon neutral.
WIND TOWER
The steel- framed wind tower that rises above one of the
courtyards reinterprets a traditional Middle Eastern
architectural element. The top of the 150-foot-tall structure
has operable louvers and mist jets that help moderate
perceived temperature in the public space surrounding its
base. cooling air currents are channelled through public
spaces by use of wind towers, which borrows its design
elements from the region’s traditional structures, which are
further cooled by green landscaping and water to provide
evaporative cooling.
PASSAGES
Within the buildings,
designers have treated
circulation areas as
“climate lobbies” —
transitional zones
maintained at a warmer
temperature than the
regularly occupied interior
spaces. The residential
structures, for example,
have central atria largely
illuminated by daylight
through skylights The building is configured to
configured to prevent the create narrow, colonnaded urban
penetration of direct space which are in the shade in
sunlight and associated much of the day.
heat. For much of the year,
the spaces are cooled by
natural means with night
air drawn into the lower
floors through grilles, and
vented, via the stack
effect, through roof-level
openings.
 The buildings feature
self-shading facades
that are orientated to
provide maximum
shade as well as
sheltering adjacent
building and the
pedestrian streets
below. The perforations
for light and shade are Landscaping and ecology were used
based on the patterns intelligently across the streetscape to
found in the traditional provide both shade and cooling
architecture of Islam. through the natural process of
evapotranspiration. To minimise the
impact of the development, Masdar is
an example of a high-density, low-rise
development. The building is
configured to create narrow,
colonnaded urban space which are in
the shade in much of the day.
 THERMAL IMAGES

Designers documented the institute ‘s outdoor space (above)

and a central Abu Dhabi street (below) with a thermal
imaging camera. The images taken show that the mean
radiant or ‘felt’ temperature in MSU is 20F (11.11C) cooler.
MATERIALS
The reinterpretation of the Arab viewpoint “mashrabiya”
was made with reinforced concrete, colored with local sand
to minimize maintenance and glass enclosed.

INDOORS
The inside of building have enough of active light with
sophisticated interior making an equal balance and
harmony between indoor and exterior spaces.
EXTERIOR
The Institute demonstrates
the sustainable principles
underpinning the overall
masterplan. The buildings
have self-shading facades
and are orientated to
provide maximum shade
as well as sheltering
adjacent buildings and the
pedestrian streets below.
Over 5,000 sq.metres of
roof mounted photovoltaic
installations provide
power and additional
shading at street level.
 The laboratories FEATURES&
feature horizontal and
vertical fins and brise-
soleil to shade the
ELEMENTS
interior space.
Inflatable EFTE
cushions insulate the
facades, which remain
cool to the touch even
under the most
intense desert sun.
Cooling air currents
are directed through
public spaces by use of
wind towers, which
borrows its design
elements from the
region’s traditional
structures. The public
spaces are further
cooled by green
landscaping and
water to provide
evaporative cooling.
 VENTILATION TOWER
OVERLOOKING COURT
The thermal transition spaces, facades, are conditioned by two
systems, a natural ventilation & thermal mass on the other.
Collecting wind towers and courtyards are the strategies of
ventilation and night cooling for the street level, where the
main pedestrian traffic occurs.
Cooling air currents passing through the public spaces using a
contemporary interpretation of the towers of wind collector,
traditional in the region. These spaces are cooled further
through the landscaped, including designs with green spaces
and water, to increase cooling by evaporation.
The thermal testing chamber in situ by the research team
confirmed significant lower radiation temperatures in the
campus environment, compared with the usual practice in
downtown Abu Dhabi.
CONSUMPTION& ENERGY
The Institute has a water and energy consumption much lower
than the average for the rest of the buildings in the UAE. The
Institute and its facilities use 54% less water, 51% less
electricity and are fully powered by solar energy.
Approximately 30% of campus energy generated by solar
panels on the roof and 75% of hot water is also obtained by
this system. There are more than five thousand square meters
of photovoltaic systems located on roofs, which provide
electricity and sun protection on the street level.
GALLERY
THANK YOU

KHUSHI PARAKH
19SA119392001