Masdar City

Masdar City is designed to be a new zero carbon city. As we move into a phase in our project of looking at integrating urban life and infrastructure, it is probably instructive to work through how this has been thought about in Masdar.
Abu Dhabi is HOT and SUNNY and a lot of energy is normally consumed by air conditioning. So creating shade by placing solar panels over the streets means the open spaces are more pleasant to be in, reduce the need for fossil fuels burnt to power air-cons and provide renewable energy all in one stroke.
For those of us working in Wellington, we only rarely seek shade in our occupation of public space.
A number of the projects I have seen recently urgently need to consider how the infrastructure they are designing can improve/make more delightful the conditions on site for the users.