Read the rest of Artist Tadashi Kawamata Stacks Hundreds of Chairs Into a 20-Foot-High Sculpture

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Post tags: "green furniture", abu dhabi, Abu Dhabi art fair, Architecture, Art, Chairs For Abu Dhabi, Hokkaido, Japanese art, meeting point, recycled chairs, Recycled Materials, shelter, social design, Tadashi Kawamata, united arab emirates

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Post tags: "energy efficiency", "solar energy", abu dhabi, clean tech, clean tech hub, csp, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, eco design, green design, greywater recycling, masdar city, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, MIST, MIT, photovoltaic panels, Recycling initiatives, shams 1, sustainable design, united arab emirates, World Future Energy Summit

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Post tags: abu dhabi, abu dhabi sustainability week, air-scrubbing pavilion, clean tech, eco design, green design, Gulf, hwkn, March Kushner, Masdar, Matthias Hollwich, MoMO PS1 Young Architects Program, oil, renewable energy, Sheikha Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, smog eating pavilion, sustainable design, united arab emirates, Wendy, WFES

Bulgarian environmental artist Christo has draped an inexplicable array of landscapes and objects in a distinctive orange hue since the 1960s – but few of his installations have been as conceptually perplexing as his latest planned installation. The Mastaba is to be a permanent flat-topped pyramid of oil barrels located in the desert about 100 miles from Abu Dhabi. While oil-rich nations vie for the dubious accolade of having the “world’s tallest building,” Christo’s sculpture—comprised of 410,000 oil barrels—is set to make Abu Dhabi home to the world’s largest permanent sculpture.

Read the rest of Conceptual Artist Christo to Build Giant Pyramid of 410,000 Oil Barrels for Abu Dhabi

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Post tags: abu dhabi, christo, Conceptual Art, oil barrel sculpture, the mastaba, united arab emirates, worlds largest sculpture, worlds most expensive sculpture

Read the rest of Abu Dhabi’s Stunning Al Bahar Towers are Shaded by a Transforming Geometric Facade

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Post tags: abu dhabi, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, abu dhabi investment council headquarters, Aedus, Aedus Architects, AIDC, al bahar towers, mashrabiya, solar gain, united arab emirates

Read the rest of Dubai Pearl is Another Massive and Dubious “Green Building” Project in The Gulf

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Post tags: "leed", "sustainable development", Baccarat, Bellagio, dubai, dubai pearl, dubious dubai buildings, eco design, green buildings in dubai, green design, holistic luxury, LEED gold, MGM Grand, Palm Jumeirah, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, united arab emirates

One might think that emirs of Dubai would learn from their past mistakes after Dubai’s artificial ‘The World’ archipelago surrendered its sands to the sea, but sinking islands and rising tides have yet to flag the Arab emirate’s ambitions of world building. Aerial photographs recently revealed that Dubai has been hard at work creating a new island – one shaped exactly like Dubai’s city center, but 1/3 the size. That’s not all – closer inspection of the photos shows that a smaller island shaped like Dubai is located off the coast of that island, and an even smaller Dubai-shaped island lies off the coast of that one!

Read the rest of Aerial Photos Reveal That Dubai Is Building a Series of Dubai-Shaped Islands Off the Coast of Dubai

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Post tags: "april fools", aerial photos reveal new dubai islands, Architecture, artificial island, burj khalifa, dubai, dubai island, Dubaisland, global warming, man-made island, satellite photos reveal new dubai islands, sinking islands, uae, united arab emirates

Billion Artificial Island Resort in UAE" width="537" height="302" class="aligncenter size-large lzy wp-image-366302" />

Spanish soccer super-team Real Madrid have announced plans to construct a $1 billion luxury resort in the United Arab Emirates – and to ensure a truly unique location, the sports company plans to construct an archipelago of artificial islands upon which it will be located. The resort, which has also been described as a theme park for the soccer obsessed, will include two high-rise hotels, luxury villas, a 10,000-seat ocean-side football stadium, a marina and a hi-tech museum devoted to the history of the Team. Real Madrid have announced that the 430,000 square meter project was designed by J+H BOIFFILS and will be constructed in partnership with the UAE government, and they hope to open by 2015.

Read the rest of Soccer Team Real Madrid to Build $1 Billion Artificial Island Resort in UAE

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Post tags: artificial islands, Florentino Perez, High Rise Architecture, Holiday Resort, Hotel Resort, J+H BOIFFILS<, man-made islands, Real Madrid, Spanish Football, Spanish Soccer, united arab emirates

Read the rest of Lattice-Pattern Dome is a Beacon of Passive Indigenous Design for New Parliament Building In U.A.E.

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", abu dhabi, arabic architecture, Daylighting, desert architecture, eco design, ehrlich architects, federal national council's parliament building, green architecture, Green Building, green design, indegenous architecture, mashrabiya, shade screens, shading, solar passive design, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, traditional architecture, uae, united arab emirates

Read the rest of Dubai’s World of Islands is Sinking Into the Sea

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Post tags: dubai, dubai building boom, dubai's sinking islands, man-made islands, nakheel, the universe, the world islands, uae, united arab emirates

In coastal desert countries like the United Arab Emirates, fresh, clean water is a lacking resource. Desalination is a necessary process to receive fresh water, but it often harms the environment by returning concentrated saline back to the ocean. Abu Dhabi’s Environment Agency recently announced that they have developed a new solar-powered desalination system that would cut costs and be more eco-friendly.

Read the rest of United Arab Emirates Tests New Solar Powered Desalination Process

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Post tags: abu dhabi, abu dhabi solar power, desalination plant abu dhabi, renewable resources, solar energy desalination system, Solar Power, solar power desalination plant, solar powered desalination, uae solar power desalination plant, united arab emirates, united arab emirates solar power desalination, united arab emirates water

Read the rest of Foster + Partners’ Carbon Neutral Masdar City Rises in the Desert

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Post tags: "sustainable development", abu dhabi, Foster + Partners, Masdar, Norman Foster, united arab emirates

It seems everyone is rolling out with plans for the world’s largest this or that and the UAE is joining the fray with a massive concentrated solar energy project called Shams 1. Masdar is teaming up with French oil company Total and Spanish solar company Abengoa Solar to build a 100 MW solar plant outside of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Compared to the monster Desertec project in Europe and North Africa, Shams 1 is a drop in the bucket, but will be up and running long before Desertec secures financing.

Read the rest of UAE Announces Plans for World’s Largest Solar Plant

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Post tags: "solar energy", abengoa solar, concentrating solar power, csp, eco design, green design, Masdar, renewable energy, shams 1, Solar Power, total, uae, united arab emirates, world's largest solar project

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait are in the midst of a massive project to re-landscape their deserts and transform them into fertile farmland, providing food security for their future. The countries are utilizing a mixture of microbes and soil — called mycorrhiza — that allows plants to absorb more nutrients than they can alone. By researching areas that have significant amounts of water and soil fertility and harnessing mycorrhiza they have already been able to convert 4,000 square meters of “hyper-saline waste-land” into a vegetable and grain producing farm.

Read the rest of Persian Gulf Harnessing Microbes to Transform Desert into Farmland

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Post tags: abu dhabi, arid land, desert, dubai, farm, farmland, food scarcity, food security, fungus, irrigation, kuwait, mycorrhiza, persian gulf, qatar, united arab emirates

Sloping towards the open sea, Oppenheim‘s luxurious mixed-use tower for the United Arab Emirates is both elegant and a model of efficiency. If you look closely, the pixelated residences comprising the development sprawl fluidly away from the lush garden oasis hidden at its base and onto the sandy beach. The design was conceived specifically to maximize the quantity of units available on the water while minimizing the amount of energy used.

Read the rest of Oppenheim’s Sloping Beach Tower Hides a Green Oasis Inside

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Post tags: "clean energy", beach marina tower, beach tower, eco design, green architecture, green design, oppenheim, Solar Power, Sustainable Building, uae, united arab emirates, wind energy

Just when you thought development in the United Arab Emirates couldn’t get any crazier, here comes a new UAE eco-city to rival Masdar. Intended to be entirely sustainable and cater to residents’ every conceivable whim within its four walls, the new Ras al Khaimah eco city development in the United Arab Emirates, design by Rem Koolhaas’s OMA office, is often likened to that of the zero-carbon, zero-waste Masdar. Cutting-edge solar technology will power the 1.2 million square meter city, built using locally-sourced Arabian materials and aesthetic styles to support the city’s overall ethos of sustainability. Leave it to Rem to design something so grand it could possibly upstage Masdar- we’ll see how it unfolds!


Read the rest of Rem Koolhaas’ Ras Al Khaimah’s Eco City to rival Masdar

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Post tags: arab eco city, Eco city in UAE, Gateway City, Masdar, middle east eco city, oma, Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah development, Ras Al Khaimah’s Eco City to rival Masdar, Rem Koolhaus, supercities, supercity, sustainable urban design, united arab emirates

Not settling for mere zero-energy, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill’s Masdar Headquarters are setting new design standards for green building, with their scheme that generates more energy than it consumes. The Masdar Headquarters building outside of Abu Dhabi is also the first building in history to generate power for its own assembly, using a solar roof pier that will be built first to power the rest of the construction.

Read the rest of World’s First Positive Energy Building in Masdar, Abu Dhabi

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", abu dhabi, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, green architecture, Green Building, green design, Masdar, Masdar Headquarters, positive energy building, positive-energy, Sustainable Building, sustainable city, sustainable design, united arab emirates, Zero Carbon, Zero energy, zero waste

Form truly follows function when it comes to the façade of the lean green O-14 (pronounced “oh-14″) office tower which broke ground this past December in Dubai. At 22 stories tall, the 300,000 square-foot commercial tower’s most unique feature is its façade, which is made of 16″ thick concrete containing over 1,000 circular openings.


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Post tags: dubai, Dubai Architecture, Dubai Sustainable Architecture, O-14, O-14 Office Tower, Perforated Curvy Office Tower, Reiser, Reiser-Umemoto, RUR Architecture, Umemoto, united arab emirates