Abu Dhabi: The Arabian Construction Company has won the contract to expand the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) campus in Abu Dhabi.
The Dh750 million contract, which makes up the second phase of construction and is being managed by Abu Dhabi developer Aldar Properties, will add another 82,000 square metres to the campus and will include student lodgings, seven open laboratories, a conference centre, a swimming pool and a gym.
It is expected to be completed over the course of 18 months and will be approximately 35 per cent larger than the current campus.
Sustainable
The project is the first project of its kind for ACC and the management hopes that the project will open doors for it at Masdar City.
"We are taking sustainable building practices and the reduction of embodied carbon into account and look forward to being a part of the future of green construction," said Hamed Mikati, Director at ACC.
Mikati told Gulf News that the contract was a "tough" win for the company and that the real challenge now lies in the project's complexity and the timeline in which it will be delivered.
Natural ventilation
The new building complex would sit adjacent to its existing campus and will incorporate energy-efficient design including natural ventilation and heat reflecting facades, a company spokesman said.
Developed by the Abu Dhabi clean energy company Masdar, the institute sits at the heart of Masdar City, a clean-technology cluster that Masdar hopes will become the biggest carbon-neutral development in the world.
Linked with MIT
MIST was established in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to focus on clean-energy research and technological development.
