The latest satellite development of Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project, a new mountainside resort destination called Aquellum, has been launched, along with other initiatives meant to promote sport, leisure, and tourism in the Gulf of Aqaba region.
The coastal development, which appears to feature the same concept for a self-styled "zero gravity urbanism" that defines The Line megacity’s internal layout, is slated to include luxury retail and hotel amenities along with art galleries and a sunken marina design, all tucked inside a 1,480-foot mountain and within traveling distance from its fellow Leyja, Epicon, and Siranna satellite resorts nearby.
Guests will arrive via boat courtesy of a hidden canal entryway at the base of the development. A central 'experiential boulevard' serves as the main artery of the socially condensing courtyard space at the center of the 330-foot-tall above-ground component. A special innovation space called 'The Generator' is finally included as an incubator of startups and other creative services businesses and aimed at "offering a platform where the future is reimagined."
Video courtesy NEOM/YouTube
Tobias Wallisser and his colleague Alexander Rieck of Germany- and Australia-based operation LAVA: Laboratory for Visionary Architecture appear in promotional content as the lead architectural designers of the Aquellum project. Nathalie Rozencwajg, founder of London-based NAME architecture, appears beside them, calling it the "the metaverse that you can physically experience."
Another recently unveiled development called Norlana has also been added to the NEOM catalog along with the new Utamo events space along the Gulf of Aqaba. Furthermore, the project has announced the acquisition of a professional soccer franchise and the creation of a new food production company called Topian in the past few weeks.
11 Comments
Rebels, you have the coordinates, your mission if you choose to accept it; destroy all bases.
why keep pushing this aberration? are they paying for these press inserts?
Why? Because this is a massive architectural initiative involving many architecture firms that our readers are very familiar with.
Are we getting paid to cover it? Don't be ridiculous. Not only have we covered this project critically, we have also turned down offers from the Saudis to have luxurious fully paid trips to NEOM to learn more about the project from the developers behind the project.
[Removed comment because its purpose was to disparage the project, not the publication.]
thanks for the explanation, but to me this is not only an architectural initiative, it's a socio-political push from a shady prince with a shameful record of human rights violations, not to speak of other crimes he's been accused of. I think involvement in the project means turning a blind eye to that.
That's an opinion that many people share. This initiative appears to be moving forward, so we feel it's better to keep the industry updated on the progress, and let people stay aware of the issues surrounding it, rather than ignoring it. We are not promoting this project.
can we have an article on the Saudi bribe attempt? Can it be made into a netflix series? and if so, who will play the lead role?
Blood architecture.
"This initiative appears to be moving forward, so we feel it's better to keep the industry updated on the progress, and let people stay aware of the issues surrounding it, rather than ignoring it."
This is why I removed my original reply, which was meant to disparage the project, which is fascinating in its aspect but execrable in its origin.
What I had added, which I later felt was combative enough to violate Archinect's T.O.S. were words to the effect that it is highly clickable, which means it effectively pays the publication that mentions it, regardless of whatever pushback against it may appear in the text of the article or the comments. This remains concerning to me.
if architecture is politics (eventually) I prefer we don't all just go into our pre-cooked corners and jeer at one another as has become customary (it is not working out for us very well so far). FWIW, Scott Galloway offered a useful take on the Kingdom recently (view from 21:20) that explains where a lot of the world is standing (not just one place, btw). The REALPOLITIK tinge to his view is Kissingerian, but I don't think anyone can disagree with everything he has to say.
What that means for news about the project is harder to parse. Denying it as a thing altogether seems off. We already live in such fragmented universes of truth. Why make another?
The comparison may not be fair at all, but I can't look at new pictures of NEOM now without thinking of this site. Both pictures show symptoms of pathology, above, our inability to solve basic, essential problems of many and the resulting destruction; in NEOM, fanciful, lavish flights by the wealthy few that isolate them further from the rest of us and solve nothing. Both worlds are fragmented, in different ways. That the resources of one might help the other seems a pipe dream.
The problem is everywhere in varying degrees. Cf. Hudson Yards and blighted urban housing.
A special innovation space called 'The Generator' is finally included as an incubator of startups and other creative services businesses and aimed at "offering a platform where the future is reimagined."
You can't imagine the future without facing reality or by mouthing empty words.
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