Abu Dhabi has begun developing Masdar City, planned as a zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free urban district on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. The development targets exclusive use of renewable energy and aims to divert up to 99% of waste from landfill.

Dr Stellios Plainiotis, consulted PRP Architects, for the design of the Sustainable Administration Facilities (SAF) offices on the Masdar site. The SAF offices accommodate 141 staff, enabling the client, project managers and design team to co-ordinate the city’s phased eight-year delivery programme. Future phases were planned to accommodate a further 600 to 800 staff.

The study delivered a quantitative assessment of the microclimate around and between the building elements using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In-house CFD solvers based on the OpenFOAM C++ toolbox (OpenCFD, Imperial College UK) were applied. The RNG k-epsilon turbulence model for incompressible flow was used. The governing equations were discretised on a Cartesian computational grid and solved using a finite-volume method. The surrounding context was modelled to a radius of approximately 250 m from the centre of the site, with a logarithmic inlet velocity profile applied.