Twenty miles outside of Abu Dhabi, what was once a barren patch of desert is now on its way to becoming the world’s most sustainable eco-city.

The Masdar Project is the United Arab Emirates’ planned city of the future, complete with state-of-the-art technology and energy-efficient transportation systems.

In a country built on oil, a car-free, solar-powered community is certainly an anomaly.

French photographer Etienne Malapert was enthralled by the idea of a green city in a land of black gold.

In his final year at the Art School of Lausanne in Switzerland, he documented the strange environment of Masdar City. What he found was an incomplete and alien site, an otherworldly land left sparse by the 2008 economic meltdown.

Malapert has shared his stunning series, “City of Possibilities,” with Business Insider.

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