The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) calls on design teams to conceive 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.
 

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