Summer holiday 2023: While most of my colleagues are on holiday, sitting relaxed on a camp site in their shorts, I am standing in the Abu Dhabi desert with steel nosed shoes and a Metadecor jacket. It is fifty degrees Celsius. I feel water flowing along the inside of my jacket sleeves, my ‘I love Amsterdam’ cap is clinging to my head. I am feeling a bit desperate, staring at the sandy spot where I have to bolt a prototype measuring 3 x 2,5 x 2,5 to four concrete blocks. How?

Text and images: Caroline Kruit

This story begins in September 2022. While on a trade mission in Dubai, I hear Nikola Znaor talking about his patented concept for Airshade: a brilliant, low-tech idea that uses the natural expansion of heated air to create moveable sun shading. His presentation is received enthusiastically by a lot of people, in a region where the sun is shining mercilessly. ‘If only  I could build a prototype and show proof of concept…’, Nikola sighed on numerous occasions. Because that is what everybody wants to know in the Middle-East: does your idea or product work in our climate?
Back in the Metadecor Headquarters in The Netherlands, I learn that Airshade has been discussed before within the team, but that earlier talks have not resulted in a collaboration. We pick up the conversations with Nikola and have meetings with engineering firm Arup and project developer Masdar City from Abu Dhabi, who is interested in building a prototype. Arup designs a prototype. Several manufacturers – including Metadecor – are asked to make a proposition. In December, just before Christmas 2022, I receive a call: Metadecor is chosen to build the prototype!

Testing in Kampen (NL)

At our headquarters, the Metadecor team engineers, calculates and builds a prototype in the first months of 2023. It is a big mock-up with four wings (two of them moving) that fits perfectly in a sea container. In our workshop the first tests are conducted, together with Nikola and Andrew Glover of Arup. We use heat cannons, terrace heaters and compressors: the Dutch sun (in winter) is not a reliable partner in our testing schedule. The schedule is stretched a little, when we need to replace a few parts in the prototype and redo some tests. As soon as the test results match the calculations Arup has, made, the prototype is ready for shipping. When it is forklifted out of the workshop, on a shy sunny day at the end of Spring, nature shows its talent: the system reacts, shows signs of life. Promising.  Late June 2023 it sails from the port of Rotterdam toward Abu Dhabi.

A concrete drill in my luggage

For five long weeks, the prototype cruises the seas to arrive in Port Khalifa in the midst of the summer holiday period at the start of August. The testing site in Abu Dhabi is the 10MW Sun Park in Masdar City, that I visited in December with my colleague Yakoub to take pictures and measurements. At Metadecor HQ in The Netherlands the Big Question has not been answered: who is going to Abu Dhabi to install the prototype and test it? The only one who enthusiastically raises a hand, is me. Because of my knowledge of the project and ‘because you work on your classic car yourself, you should be able to manage this’, my ticket is booked. I treat myself to an afternoon of concrete drilling (never done that before, I have to know the feeling) and receive lots of instructions from my colleagues. With a huge concrete drill in my luggage, I travel to the Middle-East. At Schiphol Airport I buy a cap, because I suddenly remember the advice that I should always put something on my head while working in the sun. The cap is purple and blue: ‘I love Amsterdam’.

Everything is different

Once in Abu Dhabi, nothing goes according to plan. Customs is a bit stubborn and won’t release the container – the description of the prototype is questioned, the HS-code is wrong. How to describe that thing in the container? In Dubai, Rotterdam and Abu Dhabi a lot of people are working on a solution, calling, texting, mailing, faxing. Together with Nikola I visit the test site: the location for the prototype has changed, the concrete blocks have a different size from the ones we were told to use and only when customs is cleared, a team will arrive to help making the foundations. The test site is an open area with a lot of photovoltaics on display and a few sea containers. One of the containers is airconditioned. At 23 degrees Celsius it feels like walking into a freezer. Not comfortable at all. After two days of frantic communications and nervous waiting, the prototype is cleared.

Happy with my kilos

Oh... I could write a book about everything that was different from the scenario we had written beforehand. I could tell a story about the evening (or: night) the prototype finally arrived on site. There is a story to be told about the team of construction workers that was put in charge of the foundation and the leveling of the concrete blocks – with a small steel scoop, two wooden beams and a nylon string. And then, the antique forklift: the forks did not fit the frame of the prototype.
The prototype was started to topple as soon as it left the container, trembling on the forklift at about two meters above ground. At an impulse, I jumped at the prototype and counterbalanced it by hanging onto it, yelling at the construction team to follow my example. Which they did, fortunately. Never was I more happy with the extra kilos on my body, hanging from a metal structure, together with a few Pakistani construction workers.
And then there was the sand that felt like lush snow. The small wheels of the forklift were not a good match. Eventually, the prototype was chucked onto the concrete blocks from a low-loader. Last but not least I will tell the anecdote about the concrete drill, that was ripped from my hands by the local construction workers. No way that a woman was supposed to drill a few holes in a few concrete blocks. Without hesitation, I grabbed the drill out of the male hands, looking angrily at a lot of astonished faces. I won that fight. My drill!

It works!

To make a long story a bit shorter: after a few long days and very short nights (arriving in the hotel in the middle of the night and returning to the test site before sunrise to reset the prototype), it was beautiful to see that the systems moves. The data of the attached sensors confirms that. After sunrise the wings close and in the course of the night, they open again. All on their own. Seeing that, it was time to shed the Metadecor jacket, put on some nice clothes and meet the clients – representatives of Arup and Masdar City and take pictures in front of the prototype. With a big smile, because the mission was accomplished: together with my Metadecor colleagues we have made a significant contribution to the development of a carbon neutral system for external sun shading. Nikola’s Airshade is able to contribute to a healthier indoor climate and a better energy efficiency for many buildings. I truly hope that many people will benefit from this concept.

Update Spring 2024

In April 2024 Masdar City published the prototype after a successful testing period. That allowed us to tell our stories and show the project on our website. In May 2024 talks with Masdar City started about plans to move the prototype to a more public location, for everyone to see how it works. Furthermore, Metadecor International and Airshade Technologies have been able to make propositions to adorn a building and public area with Airshade louvres and shading systems. This will be a huge step in the development of the concept.
Does this concept also work in a more temperate climate, like in Central and Southern Europe? We are convinced that it will. But – like in the Middle-East – proof of concepts is necessary. That is why we are currently working on a prototype for the European market – supported by a grant of the Dutch government – that will be tested this year and presented to the market early 2025. We will keep you posted. One thing I am sure about: these few, boiling hot days in the Abu Dhabi where significant. Significant in the development of this concept and significant for our quest towards an energy efficient and healthy built environment. I am happy to have been able to make that contribution.