The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) and Masdar will announce the winner of the 2010 UAE design competition for energy generating public art
Abu Dhabi, UAE, Wednesday, January 12th 2011 [ME NewsWire]:
The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) calls on design teams to conceive of large-scale public artworks for specific sites that, in addition to their conceptual beauty, also have the ability to harness clean renewable energy from nature, convert the energy to electrical power, and distribute the power to the utility grid of the city.
The winning team of the 2010 UAE LAGI competition will be announced at the World Future Energy Summit (WFES), held at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, ADNEC. The announcement and award ceremony will take place at the Masdar exhibition stand in the main hall of the ADNEC at 11:00am on Wednesday, January 19th. The winning team will be handed the prestigious award by Dr. Nawal Al Hosany, associate Director of Sustainability at Masdar, during the special event open to all summit attendees.
The presentation of the first prize award marks the culmination of the 2010 LAGI, a first-of-its-kind venture that has brought together global artists, architects, scientists, landscape architects, and engineers to conceive of renewable energy generating public art installations for Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The international competition received hundreds of entries from over 40 countries in its inaugural year. The announcement of the winning design is the next step towards the eventual construction of the first ever in the world large-scale public artwork that will generate utility-scale electricity for city consumption.
According to Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry, co-founders of LAGI, “the number of innovative entries to the 2010 competition made the jury decision a very competitive one. The winning design expertly combines pragmatic utility and conceptual beauty. It shows that the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration on sustainable solutions is without limit. And it makes clear that renewable energy generation has the capacity to add beauty as well as utility to the plans of our cities.”
LAGI is currently seeking partnership for the next stage, construction. Once complete, the selected design will be the first of its kind and will become a tourist destination that draws people from around the world to experience the beauty of the collaborative art creation. At the same time, the art itself has the potential to provide clean power to thousands of homes in the UAE, and set an educational example of the potentials that exist for sustainable development in the 21st century. Over time, the constructed works of public art will pay back both their carbon construction footprint and their installation cost making them the perfect investment in our future.
Masdar, Abu Dhabi's multi-faceted initiative advancing the development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable and alternative energy technologies and solutions, has sponsored the first prize award and is hosting the winning team in Abu Dhabi for the occasion of the award ceremony.
“LAGI is honoured to have the support of Masdar which has helped make the 2010 design competition possible. Masdar’s vision has inspired people around the world to conceive of new ways of looking at the design of our cities,” stated Monoian and Ferry.
Commenting on the support to LAGI, Nawal Al Hosany, Associate Director, Sustainability for Masdar commented: “We are extremely proud to be supporting LAGI’s important initiative for UAE. Sustainable design solutions play a vital role as we actively pursue the challenges related to renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate change. Sustainable design is key to many of our projects, indeed the wind tower featured at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology building in Masdar City is a living example of how it is possible to combine a traditional cooling system with modern, sustainable and functional design solutions.”
Visitors to the WFES, which is open 17th through the 20th of January, can see beautiful renderings of the amazing entries to the 2010 LAGI competition. Most all of the designs have also been posted to a portfolio section on the LAGI website, landartgenerator.org, with the exception of the winning design which will appear on the site the day following the January 19th announcement.
About Land Art Generator Initiative
The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is a worldwide public arts initiative that offers the opportunity for collaborative teams of artists, architects, landscape architects and designers, working with engineers and scientists, to create new ways of thinking about what renewable energy generation looks like. It begins with the statement that renewable energy generation can be beautiful at the same time that it is functional. LAGI seeks to broaden public awareness of renewable energy’s promise by inspiring and educating through public art about the potential for a sustainable future.
The goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is to design and construct public art installations that have the added benefit of large scale clean energy generation. Each sculpture will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid with each land art sculpture having the potential to provide power to thousands of homes.
The project has received featured articles in numerous local and international press outlets, including The New York Times. LAGI continues to pursue the construction of the best designs while in the planning stage for the 2012 New York City competition. The plan is to maintain a biennial schedule for competitions in cities around the world.
LAGI was conceived by Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry, a husband and wife team based in the UAE. Elizabeth is an interdisciplinary artist and designer, and is Assistant Professor at Zayed University. Robert is an architect and Principal of Studied Impact Design.
Please visit www.landartgenerator.org for more information.
About Masdar
Masdar is Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted initiative advancing the development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable and alternative energy technologies and solutions. The company serves as a link between today’s fossil fuel economy and the energy economy of the future - developing the “greenprint” for how we will live and work tomorrow. Backed by the stability and reputation of the Mubadala Development Company, an investment vehicle of the government of Abu Dhabi, Masdar is dedicated to the emirate’s long-term vision for the future of energy.
For more information about the Masdar Initiative, please visit: www.masdar.ae
About the artists, images of whose work is included with this release:
Wind Stalk
Darío Núñez-Ameni received a degree in architecture from The Cooper Union in 1993 where from 1996 to 2002 he taught Freshman design and computational design methods. He has worked in the studio of Raimund Abraham and later was, from 1997 to 2008, a designer and partner at Acconci Studio.
Thomas Siegl received a degree in biology from the Karl-Franzens University in Graz, Austria in 2005. Thomas’ work in design and architecture started out of his interest in digital technology and programming.
Solar (ECO) System
Antonio Maccà was born in Padua (Italy) in 1963. He graduated at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Padua in 1988 and at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Venice (IUAV) in 1992. Since 1992 he has been working both as an artist and an architect, taking part in national as well as in international exhibitions and competitions.
In collaboration with Flavio Masi
PV Dust
George L. Legendre is a partner at IJP, a London-based practice exploring the natural intersection between space, mathematics, and computation. Legendre graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1994 and served as lecturer and Assistant Professor of Architecture there from 1995 to 2000.
In collaboration with Emanuele Mattutini, Jean-Aime Shu, and Alfonso Senatore
Image Credits:
Image courtesy of the artists and The Land Art Generator Initiative: Wind Stalk, by Dario Núñez-Ameni and Thomas Siegl
Image courtesy of the artists and The Land Art Generator Initiative: Solar (ECO) System, by Antonio Maccà and Flavio Masi
Image courtesy of the artists and The Land Art Generator Initiative: PV Dust, by George L. Legendre, Emanuele Mattutini, Jean-Aime Shu, and Alfonso Senatore
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