In an expanse of gray rock and dust in one of the harshest environments on earth, the United Arab Emirates is about to build what is being described as the world's first sustainable city, designed by British architect Norman Foster.
The site is far from promising. Far from a polluted sea, a fierce sun raises temperatures to 50?C in the summer, and there is no fresh water, no soil and no animals. But tens of billions of petro-dollars will be poured into these 7km2 of desert on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.
Called Masdar -- "the source" in Arabic -- the walled city is intended to house 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. It will have no cars and be self-sufficient in renewable energy, the majority of which will be solar energy.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
The formal unveiling of the desert eco-city was made on Monday at a summit on future energy sources in Abu Dhabi, attended by the UK business secretary, John Hutton, and Prince Andrew.
"It's extremely ambitious," said Gerard Evenden, senior partner in Lord Foster's architecture practice in London, which has had a team working on the design for nine months. "We were invited to design a zero-carbon city. In this harsh place we needed to look back at history and see how ancient settlements had adapted to their environments."
The buildings will huddle together as in a casbah, and will be cooled by wind towers which will collect the desert's breezes and flush out hot air. No building will be more than five stories high; the city is to be oriented northeast to southwest to give the optimum balance of sunlight and shade.
It will feel closer to many cities built in the age of the cart and horse. Most roads will only be 3m wide and just 70m long to develop a micro-climate and keep the air moving; roofs will allow in air and keep the sun out in the summer. No one will be more than 200m from public transport, and streets will give on to colonnaded squares and fountains.
ARCHITECT'S DREAM
"We are definitely not imposing a standard international architecture in Masdar. We are aiming to find a balance of light and heat," Evenden said. "It's only really hot for three months of the year, but at other times it's humid."
It is every architect's dream to build a new city and Foster's team say they started from scratch. The idea has been to reduce the amount of energy needed to build it and to live there, and then to let solar energy take over.
"We will start with a large solar power station which will provide the energy to construct the city. Some 80 percent of all the roof space will be used to generate solar power, and because we expect technology to improve as we are building it, we hope we will later be able to remove the power plant. We could `borrow' energy from outside, but we are trying to prove it can all be generated in the confines of the site," Evenden said.
The architects are also planning some high-tech gadgetry. The 50,000 inhabitants, and everyone who works there, will move around on one of three levels. A light railway will whizz people to and from Masdar to Abu Dhabi's forest of glass and steel towers; a second level is reserved for pedestrians; and a third for "personalized rapid transport pods," described by Evenden as "little vehicles like driverless personal taxis which run on tracks or magnetic discs in the road."
"It's a tried technology," he said. "They are in production in Holland, and used to move containers around in Rotterdam port."
MONEY NO OBJECT
No clues have been given about the city's cost, how it will be socially organized and who will live there, but money is clearly no object. Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates, is vying with neighbor Dubai to be the most dazzling Gulf city and the environment is seen as the new card in the deck.
With at least US$1 trillion invested abroad and sitting on nearly 100 billion barrels of oil, Abu Dhabi is the richest city in the world. Its 420,000 inhabitants are theoretically worth about US$17 million each, and they are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than any other population in the world.
Abu Dhabi is expected this week to announce a US$500 million deal to manufacture thin-film solar panels to make Masdar a center of the global solar energy manufacturing industry.
"This will be the global capital of the renewable energy revolution. It's the first oil producing nation to have taken such a significant step towards sustainable living," said Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, director of the World Wildlife Fund's One Planet Living initiative, which aims to develop sustainable communities. But critics have said Masdar is a fig leaf for the rest of the Gulf, heartland of the world's fossil fuel extraction.
"The numbers must be put into perspective. They are spending welcome billions of dollars on renewables but trillions are still going into climate-changing oil economies. The future is the sun and renewables but there is no time to wait for this revolution," said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth.
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