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A new exhibition titled Zero Gravity Urbanism—Principles for a New Livability will explore the conceptual underpinnings behind Saudi Arabia’s contentious NEOM megadevelopment parallel with the start of the 2023 Venice Biennale on May 20th. Featuring contributions from Morphosis, Peter... View full entry
UN rights experts have denounced the pending execution of three members of a Saudi tribe, reportedly in connection with their opposition to a planned Red Sea megacity. [...]
The three men – Shadly Ahmad Mahmoud Abou Taqiqa al-Huwaiti, Ibrahim Salih Ahmad Abou Khalil al-Huwaiti and Atallah Moussa Mohammed al-Huwaiti – were reportedly sentenced to death on 5 August last year and their sentences were upheld on appeal on 23 January, the statement said.
— The Guardian
The men were originally charged under a 2017 anti-terrorism law. The Saudi government has also reportedly plagued their tribal group with drone surveillance, bribery, and even threats of violence since the announcement of the project the same year. Other opponents inside the development’s... View full entry
AECOM has announced that it has been awarded a multi-year contract to provide project management consultancy services for the NEOM International Airport in Saudi Arabia. The firm will offer support towards master planning, design, and construction services as well as testing... View full entry
British engineering concern Atkins has been announced as a strategic Delivery Partner for The Line, Saudi Arabia’s complicated centerpiece for the NEOM megadevelopment that is set to be constructed in just under three years. As part of their five-year contract, Atkins will provide project and... View full entry
A list of architecture firms involved in the design of Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project has come to light along with a preview exhibition on view now in Riyadh at the Diriyah Biennale Foundation for Contemporary Art that features proposals from unspecified designers. Peter Cook, Adjaye... View full entry
Plans for a new floating city design that’s part of the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia have been revealed recently, offering a glimpse at the Gulf state’s full vision for a megadevelopment program that includes Trojena ski resort, an artificial island called Sindalah, and centerpiece... View full entry
The NEOM megadevelopment in Saudi Arabia is moving forward with an attention-grabbing feature after the American engineering firm Bechtel announced its retention as project managers for a new manmade ski resort project called Trojena. According to NEOM’s website, the resort will be spread... View full entry
Three men have been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over their alleged opposition to the country’s NEOM project, according to a report published last week by the human rights monitoring group ALQST. Image courtesy ALQST The Saudi Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) handed down the sentences on... View full entry
It may now be seen as a dystopian nightmare, the far-flung folly of an autocrat desperate for global approval, but the idea of building a self-contained linear city has preoccupied the imaginations of architects and planners for generations. The Line might bill itself as a “never-before-seen approach to urbanisation”, but the principles behind it have been proposed many times over – though never successfully realised. — The Guardian
The Guardian critic writes that the outlandish NEOM project structure resembled a “habitable supercomputer” and cites a recent Bloomberg report that names Marvel Comics designer Olivier Pron as one of its many non-architect digital designers before pinning the massive project’s “ominous... View full entry
Downtown Circle is made up of five levels and would sit on five points, or pillars, embedded into the ground. The massive span of the circle itself would be composed of two main rings held together by a continuous green belt named the Skypark which vertically connects the floors with each other creating a connected three-dimensional urban green eco-system. — The National
The National mentions that the (supposedly) self-sustaining 550-meter-tall (1,804-foot) structure would include a tram system and incredible landscaped features such as swamps and a waterfall in and around its three-kilometer (1.86-mile) long tract. ZNera Space, the Dubai-based firm behind the... View full entry
A clearer picture of Saudi Arabia’s mind-blowing NEOM megaproject is coming together after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s office unveiled plans for an elevated 170-kilometer (105 miles) long linear city called The Line that he says will eventually house more than 9 million people... View full entry
The Line, as the car-free linear city that will form the backbone of Neom is known, could cost up to $200 billion to build, the prince said last year, though that was before the plan changed to include gigantic horizontal buildings.
The buildings would be “different heights as you go,” adapting to the landscape, with their final size determined by engineering considerations and the terrain, Al-Nasr said.
— Bloomberg
The OPEC nation has thus far been mum as to the new plan’s details but says it will be funded in part through an increase in surplus revenues overseen by the Public Investment Fund, which is managed by NEOM’s CEO Al-Nasr. It is yet unclear whether Bechtel, who previously signed on their... View full entry
American engineering firm Bechtel has inked a contract with Neom, a forthcoming $500 billion "smart city-region" that is slated for what is currently mostly open mountain and desert landscape along Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. According to a press release issued by Bechtel, the firm was... View full entry
“This should be an automated city where we can watch everything,” Neom’s Mohammed bin Salman-led founding board said, according to the documents—a city “where a computer can notify crimes without having to report them or where all citizens can be tracked.” — The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal digs into some of the documentation underpinning Saudi Arabia's forthcoming desert tech city, Neom. The Massachusetts-sized city-state, a pet project of the country's omnipresent crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is being planned as part of an effort to turn the country... View full entry
“We’re in the midst of new cities fever,” says Prof Sarah Moser. The head of the new cities lab at McGill University has documented more than 100 cities that have sprung up across Asia and Africa since the early 2000s for her forthcoming Atlas of New Cities. — The Guardian
The Guardian kicks off its new Cities from scratch series with an overview of noteworthy planned metropolises that are replacing big swaths of desert, jungle, or sea across Asia and Africa. While some new cities started out ambitiously but had to eventually give up on key features, others took... View full entry