The Land Art Generator Initiative encourages designers to be a part of the great energy transition

The latest challenge from the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI)—with a 1st Place Prize of $40,000 USD and a 2nd Place Prize of $10,000—invites you to design a work of public art for Masdar City, Abu Dhabi that will contribute clean kilowatt-hours to the city grid while beautifying one of the most important civic spaces in the low-carbon masterplan.

What does the future of renewable energy look like?
As the world comes together over the next decade to meet the challenge of global climate change, solar, wind, and other renewable energy installations will be distributed across rooftops, farmlands, vacant lots, and sites of every kind and scale around the world, having an impact on our cities and rural landscapes like nothing else since the construction of the automobile superhighways of the twentieth century.

While the vast majority of this new infrastructure will be utilitarian installations designed to meet the most competitive cost per kilowatt-hour, the great energy transition also offers the opportunity—for cherished places, sensitive sites, and when community engagement is key to long-term project success—to think creatively about how clean energy technology can weave itself into the cultural landscapes of our cities. When future generations look back at this pivotal time in human history, they can visit the 21st century cultural landmarks that we design today as an integral part of a just and sustainable solution to the climate crisis.

Weaving culture, art, and inclusivity into our renewable energy landscapes is the mission of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI), a nonprofit that works with cities around the world to develop public art installations that also function to supply clean electricity to meet existing demand—and lowering the carbon footprint of the city with art that gives back more than just beauty and returns more than just kilowatt hours on its capital investment.

LAGI 2019 Abu Dhabi
LAGI is pleased to be holding a special edition design competition in partnership with the 24th World Energy Congress and sponsored by Masdar. LAGI 2019 Abu Dhabi—Return to the Source—invites architects, landscape architects, artists, and other creatives around the world to design an iconic work of art for a landmark site within Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. 

Your artwork will use renewable energy technology as a medium of creative expression and will provide on-site energy production consistent with the master plan of the city. An official side event of the 24th World Energy Congress, the primary exhibition of the top 25 proposals and the official LAGI 2019 award ceremony will be held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre September 9–12, 2019. The LAGI 2019 book featuring 50–60 submissions will be published with Prestel (a division of Random House) and will be released in January 2020 at the World Future Energy Summit. LAGI 2019 opened on January 16 and closes on May 12, 2019. 

The Design Guidelines document can be found at landartgenerator.org/competition2019.html

Renewable Energy Can be Beautiful 
When we think of the renewable energy transition, we often have in mind dark blue photovoltaic rectangles carpeting the landscape or large three-blade horizontal axis wind turbines marching along mountain ridges or into the sea. We think about grid reliability and consumer cost per kilowatt-hour, or we think about the climate change apocalypse that we will impose on future generations if we fail to act swiftly enough. All of these elements are important from technical and policy perspectives, but there is something missing that will be key to success if we are to meet the goals that we have set for ourselves. We must recognize the importance of human culture to the realization of change. It is a lack of imagination that has brought us to the brink, and it will be an influx of imagination that can possibly pull us back from it. If we are going to succeed in reducing carbon emissions, we must make the solutions more visible, inspire the general public, and get people excited about the renewable energy transition.  

LAGI design competitions have changed the way that cities and developers manage the integration of public art and creative placemaking into the master planning process for new developments. Competitions for Dubai/Abu Dhabi (2010), New York City (2012), Copenhagen (2014), Glasgow (2015), Santa Monica (2016), Willimantic (2017), and Melbourne (2018) have brought in over 1,000 designs from 60+ countries.

Join us in 2019, and show the world how renewable energy can be beautiful.