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Masdar evaluating different 
design for its headquarters

ABU DHABI — Masdar has said it is evaluating a different design for its headquarters than the one selected in 2008 from Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture for a 100,000 square-metre structure equipped with enough solar panels to cover four soccer fields.

The headquarters, planned in Abu Dhabi, “will now be built in phases, in line with market demand and economic conditions at the time”, Masdar said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Officials declined to say whether the revised design would still allow for the headquarters to generate more power than it uses. Set up in 2006, it was to build Masdar City, a carbon-neutral town in which students and companies pursued renewable energy projects.

Last year, Masdar reviewed its plans and said in October it was scaling back the zero-carbon ambition. It delayed the city’s first phase by two years to 2015.

The new headquarters, which was to have formed the centerpiece of Masdar City, will conform to “the sustainable construction practices implemented across the city”, the company said.

Gordon Gill, a partner at the firm with the winning design, said in a September 8 phone interview from Chicago: “Mubadala and Masdar are having discussions about the building. I’m expecting to hear from them within the month.”

The headquarters as first designed was to have provided 3 per cent more energy than required for its own operation, generating 5.5 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy annually, according to Masdar’s website.