Archinect - News

NEOM announces new Gidori resort and golf course satellite development — its tenth overall

2024-03-18T19:22:00-04:00

A new golf resort concept has been revealed as the latest satellite development for NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion+ experiment in urbanization and global luxury tourism.

'Gidori,' as it will be known, is designed to include an 18-hole course with a 200-unit residential component, 80-room hotel, beach club, and other sport and leisure facilities spread throughout a rocky coastal setting on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Image courtesy NEOM

Architects Ignacio Gomez and Lama Al-Kharboush (both of Aedas) are mentioned in a promotional video as being the lead designers for the project.

Video courtesy NEOM/YouTube

It follows Leyja, Epicon, Siranna, Utamo, Norlana, and Aquellum as the latest addition to the NEOM family. Marketing for the project appears to be centered on its integration within the landscape. A "progressive architectural centerpiece" called 'The Monolith' will greet visitors at the shoreline, keying their repose into the network of spas, pools, and gyms inside and anchoring the pr...

The zombie golf courses are coming

2019-06-17T19:24:00-04:00

Municipalities, in the interest of preserving open space, could once be counted on to take over troubled courses. But subsidizing golf has become a toxic political issue in most places.

Are the days of America's golf clubs numbered? Reading the news, it doesn't look too good.

A recent Crain's report chronicling the ailing state of suburban Chicago golf clubs points out that while business was booming for the region's country clubs just a decade ago, the game has fallen flat in recent years. Many golf clubs are folding, being taken over by local municipalities, or eyeing redevelopment as golf playing slumps nationwide.

Real estate developer Chris Charnas, president of Links Capital Advisors, tells Crain's, "So many golf clubs face the reality of declining play. They once counted on 30,000 paid rounds a year and now that is under 20,000,” adding, “Many course owners will want to sell any way they can. They’re all looking for exit strategies.”

Planetizen adds that the trend extends to other parts of the country, as well, per a 2019 National Golf Foundation (NGF) report.

The report found that on top of a 5% drop in play between 2017 and 2018, nearly 200 courses clo...

Plans for West 8-designed Houston Botanic Garden met with resistance

2016-02-22T13:42:00-05:00

By the year 2020, however, America’s fourth largest city will be able to claim a “premier” botanic garden all its own in the form of Houston Botanic Garden (HBG). [...] And, as it turns out, some folks living in the neighborhoods abutting the golf course would rather not see a stunning botanic garden designed by the same Dutch landscape architecture firm behind the redevelopment of New York City's Governors Island take its place. And it’s not because they're necessarily gaga over golf.

To learn more about the Houston Botanic Garden master plan, which recently won mayoral approval, click here.

Turning Japan's golfing greens into solar farms

2015-07-22T13:10:00-04:00

Japan has been hungry for alternative energy ever since the 2011 Fukushima disaster made nuclear power an unattractive option in the country, and golf courses just happen to be perfectly suited for solar power — they're large open spaces that often get lots of sunlight. Kyocera's first project, now under construction, is a 23 megawatt solar plant on a golf course in Kyoto prefecture. When it goes live in 2017, the plant will produce enough power for about 8,100 households.

Controversy surrounds plans to replace the golf courses of New Orlean's City Park

2015-02-25T18:43:00-05:00

You can't see it now among the overgrown cart paths and weed-choked lagoons but a championship golf course will soon rise in City Park [...] City Park's long-awaited, oft-delayed $24.5 million golf complex finally broke ground and will one day be a boon for the local golf community.

Jeff Duncan of The Times-Picayune gushes over the slated-development and its 7,300-yard Rees Jones-designed course. Boasting "a new clubhouse, driving range and practice facility," project-designers hope it will attract the attention of the Zurich Classic. But not everyone is happy about the plans: a Change.org petition has already attracted almost 1,200 signatories hoping to shut down the project.

The sixth-largest park in the US, City Park was unique among the country's great public parks in that it was largely self-supported. The park hosted three 18-hole golf courses in addition to an amusement park, botanical gardens, several sports stadiums and the New Orleans Museum of Art. But when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, many of the facilities were destroyed. In the wake of the storm, the park quickly became overgrown.

For some, the post-Katrina park is an improvement on its older, privatized existence. According to the petition, this "naturally reclaimed urban oasis" has "been creati...