Masdar Mosque
MASDAR MOSQUE – The studio was invited to design a community mosque in the new city of Masdar, Abu Dhabi. The city’s public ground plane was planned to be raised on columns two storeys up in the air, as if on a table, with an underground service zone be-neath containing the transport system and all utilities. While its buildings were plotted along a strict rectilinear grid to capture the cooling breezes of the desert and the sea, the mosque had to be oriented towards Mecca, setting it at almost 45 degrees to the rest of the city’s grid. The studio felt that this gave it permission to be different from the other buildings sitting on top of this table. Muslims kneel and place their heads on the earth to pray, but the extraordinary thing in Masdar is that worshippers will be elevated above the ground, placing their heads on a tabletop seven metres above the desert. As a mosque should be a particularly precious place, the studio felt that there was an opportunity to step off this futuristic slab of sustainable living and reconnect with the earth.
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