While most green buildings strive to reduce or supplement their power consumption, there has yet to be a building that actually produces more energy than it consumes. Enter the The Masdar Headquarters building outside of Abu Dhabi — the world’s first positive energy building. Even the construction will be eco-friendly, as the first thing to be built will be a solar pier that will provide power for the rest of the assembly. The $300 million, 1.4 million square foot architectural wonder will be the centerpiece of the sustainable, car-free Norman Foster-designed Masdar City, a $22 billion development just outside Abu Dhabi. Absolutely incredible. Inhabitat shares some additional details:
“The building’s aggressive approach to sustainability enables it to offer the lowest energy consumption per square meter for its class, one of the world’s largest integrated photovoltaic systems and the world’s largest solar thermal driven cooling and dehumidification system. The complex will utilize sustainable materials and feature integrated wind turbines, outdoor air quality monitors. Compared with typical mixed-use buildings of the same size, the Headquarters will consume 70 percent less water.”
The United Arab Emirates have been heating things up lately with their green projects. In January, they announced the most ambitious sustainability initiative ever undertaken by a government, with up to $15 billion over five years going to green projects. The way it’s shaping up, the Middle East may become the green capital of the world. Meanwhile, the U.S. is still trying to figure out if it’s a good idea or not.
Tick, tock.
4 Comments
What an amazing building this promises to be - let’s hope it inspires others to do more like this. Please find some link love from us to you - we featured this post in our Friday link round up. : )
very cool architecture.
If this is successful or not we’ll be seeing more and more projects like this in the future.
Good looking building with all the green bells & whistles …We are engineering smaller scale wind turbines for urban commercial building rooftops. We are located in Austin Texas and seeking funding assistance to get third prototype into production by the end of the year. Thanks for your patience while the site loads…. http://buildingturbines.com
I’m interested in similar urban renewable energy technologies.
Fair Winds,
John Graham Jr
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