Masdar Institute.

With just 18 months to complete the £225 million project, coordination was paramount; MIST was the first building on the site, with designs being developed elsewhere as our construction was already underway. Setting out and services strategies were frequently reviewed alongside the client and other design teams, and a high-density layout meant that construction was taking place in a relatively confined area, which also affected phasing. Piled foundations, chosen due to limited ground bearing capacity, were driven before the design was signed off. A 7 m-tall podium structure was installed to allow the finalised building footprint to transfer down onto the pile grid, and measures were taken to increase the structure’s efficiency where possible.

Concrete was used for the superstructure, with the landmark Knowledge Centre overarched by a dramatic curved glulam timber roof. Not only was the building’s thermal mass appropriate for the harsh desert climate, but the use of fair-faced concrete also reduced the need for finishing materials. In line with the latest sustainable research in concrete, we adopted pulverised fuel ash to replace cement. Its relative density allowed us to comply with vibration mitigation requirements throughout the building, which enhanced the versatility of internal layouts: unrestricted, movable workstations can plug into an overhead system of exposed services and flexible connections.