Saudi Arabia’s NEOM megaproject has announced a new planned luxury resort development called Leyja that features designs from teams led by architects Mario Cucinella, Chris van Duijn, and Shaun Killa.
Details on the new aspect of the development are scarce, though the plan is to include three hotels and an experience center placed at nodes along a winding gulch leading inland from the Gulf of Aqaba.
Renderings show the structures being inserted into the 400-meter-high natural rock formations at the site.
The 'Adventure Hotel,' designed by van Duijn, is stepped vertically as though a staircase leading up the walls of the cliff whose topography is accentuated by its form. The hotel is intended to provide a base for tourists to pursue rock climbing and other "high-octane" activities.
It is joined by an oasis-straddling design from Cucinella that bolts vertically from the cliffside, dominated by five facade fins.
Finally, the hotel concept from Killa offers wellness programming inside two opposing volumes with reflexive facades.
The project announcement promises that some 95% of the natural spaces surrounding the development will be preserved in line with the country's Saudi Vision 2030 plan. No construction timelines have been published for Leyja as of yet.
The past year has seen a spate of new promotional materials and project details as the country’s plans for the NEOM build-out become clearer. The Leyja trio of architects joins Thom Mayne, Peter Cook, and OMA (where van Duijn is a Partner) as names and firms that have been attached to the project. The only confirmed contracts so far have been Zaha Hadid Architects for the luxury ski resort development called Trojena and LUCA DINI for the Oxagon manmade island.
Saudi Arabia is pursuing the project in part as a showcase for contemporary urbanism concepts and with the interests of its burgeoning tourism economy in mind. It is also reportedly planning for a population boom at midcentury while trying to mitigate against extreme climate threats.
Current projections have the controversial main The Line smart city development ready by 2039. Additional satellite components are expected to be announced later as the larger plan unfolds.
9 Comments
Sooooooo exciting .... not
they just destroyed the valley!
these are ancient sites highly regarded for their spiritual significance and for a European to come in and disregard that is just not right.
Midjourney could've generated the same stuff LMAO
I think it is Midjourney or equal already...
It's the project delivery that bugs me with these projects. The design consultant is really charged with producing a vision of the project. It could be a video or just an image. Said vision is then acquired by the client and becomes the basis of the project. An army of executive architects and their consultants from around the world then try to turn this vision into reality, with the help of cost consultants, engineers, branding agencies, political reps. But that genesis of the project could be an AI greybox.
more content of architects pretending they're saving the world while pushing the same vile/speculative agendas that is putting our world in distress in the first place.
mm111 you can't blame "the Europeans" for what is happening on the Red Sea
Don't love these or the larger project...but I have to say compared to much of the NEOM proposals/press these do at least seem to make some nod to their location/place. If only in terms of evoking/matching shape/form of/to surrounding geomorphology?
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