Head quarter of Masdar city, the first zero carbon city all over the world.

The Masdar Headquarter building lies at the heart of the Masdar initiative. The development with a site area of 5.5 sq.m and a built up area of six million sq.m has used traditional planning principles of walled city together with existing technologies to achieve a carbon neutral and zero waste community. The Masdar HQ is made of seven blocks separated by streets but linked courtyards. The streets provide access through the building and link the plaza to the rest of the community and reflect the building location. All the streets are open to the sky but are crossed above the third floor by courtyards. these not only provide horizontal and vertical connectivity between buildings, but are the most important part of HQ itself. The courtyards will be major nodal and oriental points, beautiful outdoor spaces where people meet, work and relax.

Masdar HQ building is The first zero carbon building all over the world. To achieve this very challenging target we had to apply several intellectual layers. The use of PV panels, the use of wind turbines are parts of the active strategies besides many mechanical, electrical and structural strategies as well. The architectural concept of the spaces configuration is based on introduction of the "COURTYARD" as central space for all the headquarter offices and the core of the passive strategy to achieve the zero carbon goal. The central "COURTYARDS" play a significant role in performing a beter internal environment through the used materials, natural ventilation, courtyad orientation, the use of thermal mass, the use of living walls and the used materials of the courtyard skin.