Autodesk Gallery Powers of Design Exhibit: 10**4 Masdar City

I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.

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Visualization of proposed Masdar City master plan. Image courtesy of Masdar City.

10⁴ MAGNITUDE
10,000 m
10 Kilometers

Masdar City

10 Kilometers

The pursuit of the green building holy grail is happening at 104. Located near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Masdar City will be a zero-waste, zero-carbon-emission development relying entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources when completed, with its headquarters being the world’s first positive-energy building, producing more energy than it consumes.

Using Building Information Modeling (BIM), Masdar designers can integrate architectural, structural, and building systems from the start, designing the city to be a hub for clean tech companies and home to 45,000–50,000 people and 1,500 businesses.

Automobiles will be banned with travel accomplished via public mass transit. This, coupled with Masdar's perimeter wall designed to keep out the hot desert winds, allows for narrow, shaded streets that help funnel cooler breezes across the city.

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Masdar Headquarters

Image courtesy of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture ^{source: smithgill.com}

With regard to the Masdar Headquarters, a key ingredient of this building is its large photovoltaic array on the roof. When construction resumes, the array will be built first and the resulting solar energy will be used to build the rest of the building.

Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.

Previous posts on this topic include:

• 10^-15 Protons and Neutrons
• 10^-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
• 10^-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
• 10^-12 Gamma Rays
• 10^-11 Fluorine Ion
• 10^-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
• 10^-9 Carbon Nanotubes
• 10^-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
• 10^-7 HIV Virus
• 10^-6 Red Blood Cells
• 10^-5 Sand
• 10^-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
• 10^-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
• 10^-2 Lego
• 10^-1 Prosthetic Fairing
• 10⁰ Biome Concept Car
• 10¹ Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction
• 10² Shanghai Tower
• 10³ Bay Bridge

Future blog posts will cover:

• 10⁵ Palm Islands
• 10⁶ The Moon
• 10⁷ Earth
• 10⁸ Jupiter
• 10⁹ The Sun
• 10¹⁰ Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
• 10¹¹ Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
• 10¹² Distance from Pluto to the Sun
• 10¹³ Voyager 2
• 10¹⁴ The Solar System
• 10¹⁵ Cat's Eye Nebula
• 10¹⁶ Pillars of Creation
• 10¹⁷ Great Orion Nebula
• 10¹⁸ M15 Globular Cluster
• 10¹⁹ Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
• 10²⁰ Triangulum Galaxy
• 10²¹ The Milky Way
• 10²² IC 1101
• 10²³ Local Group of Galaxies
• 10²⁴ The Local Supercluster
• 10²⁵ 3C 273
• 10²⁶ Outer Limit of the Universe

Measurement is alive in the lab.