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Arab News reports that the fire broke out at the Suleimaniyah rail station on Sunday in Jeddah, leaving five injured. Saudi Arabia’s Haramain High-Speed Railway opened in 2018 and ferried Hajj pilgrims throughout the country for the first time earlier this year... View full entry
High-speed rail service will be available for the first time this year during Hajj, the pilgrimage by Muslims to Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca.
Some of the millions of pilgrims expected to make the journey will be riding Haramain High Speed Rail, which links Mecca to Medina and passes through three stations: Jeddah, King Abdul Aziz International Airport and King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh.
— CNN
The route's four larger-than-life train stations are designed by Foster + Partners and BuroHappold as international gateways for each host city, and are based on traditional and ancient design motifs that prioritize the creation of breezy spaces that are protected from the sun. 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
Riyadh-based photographer Faisal Bin Zarah has documented the construction process of a major new project soon to be completed in his home city. The King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) Metro Station, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, is projected to be completed next year, eight years... View full entry
U.S. engineering firm Aecom will manage the development of Neom Bay, part of a $500 billion mega city on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast [...]
The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, is spearheading plans to develop Neom, a futuristic city being built from scratch, as part of the government’s plans to cut its reliance on oil and attract foreign investment.
— Bloomberg
Intentions for the planned Neom megacity were first announced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, but Saudi Arabia's suspected involvement in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi a year later caused international outrage and prominent international figures on the... View full entry
Danish 3D printing construction company COBOD International has sold a BOD2 to Saudi Arabian construction company Elite for Construction & Development Co. The BOD2, reportedly the biggest construction 3D printer in the world, will be delivered to Elite by the end of May, 2019.
Elite placed the order of the BOD2 from COBOD in order to fulfil Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to improve the country’s economy and housing through pillars of innovations, i.e., modern construction techniques.
— 3D Printing Industry
COBOD states the printing speed of its new BOD2 system at 18 meters (59 feet) per minute. Image: COBOD."The BOD2 3D printer can print buildings with measurements of 12m in width, 27m in length and 9m in height," reports 3D Printing Industry. "COBOD also claim that the machine can produce three... View full entry
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has set multiple ambitious agendas for his desert kingdom. Turning it into a major cultural destination may end up being one of the highest-profile. For part of the plan, the Saudi government has turned to Sotheby’s, the biggest U.S. auction house, and Allan Schwartzman, the co-chairman of its fine art division. — Bloomberg
The largest auction house in the US, Sotheby’s, is in talks with Crown Prince HRH Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to build a cultural center in the northwest deserts of Saudi Arabia, according to Bloomberg. The contemporary art program is to be located in the Al-Ula region, which... View full entry
Norman Foster has temporarily stepped back from his role on the board overseeing the planning of a $500 billion mega-city in Saudi Arabia as questions mount over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
The international community is demanding answers over what happened to the Washington Post writer following his recent disappearance inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
— Architects' Journal
Norman Foster is one of several 'global experts' who were announced as members on the global advisory board for the planned $500-billion NEOM mega-city project in the Saudi Arabian desert earlier this month but have distanced themselves from the appointment since the reported death of WaPo... View full entry
Working closely with DaeWha Kang, then the office’s design director, Hadid turned to nature for lessons. “When you look deeply at nature, you find out why things look the way they look,” Mr. Kang said. “You find systems that respond to environmental conditions that result in the forms you see.” — The New York Times
Photo © Hufton+Crow.The NYT's Joseph Giovannini reviews the Zaha Hadid-designed King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: "Her victory in the competition dovetailed with the agenda of a king who, in 2009, founded the coed King Abdullah University of Science and... View full entry
Construction of the world's tallest skyscraper in Jeddah is going ahead, the head of the consortium behind the $1.5 billion project said, despite the detention of some businessmen backing the plan in Saudi Arabia's crackdown on corruption. [...]
Construction has reached the 63rd floor and the superstructure - the concrete shell and the cladding - is to be completed next year, Jomah said, adding that delays in some areas were inevitable because of technical challenges.
— Arabian Business
Progress on the soon-to-be tallest structure on earth has been troubled for a while, with the main contractor (and partial owner) Saudi Binladin Group going through a financial rough patch and, more recently, several project officials and royal family members being targeted by the country's... View full entry
After years of delays and a dearth of information, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (known as Ithra) in the Saudi Arabian eastern city of Dhahran is finally getting off the ground. The long-awaited culture hub, which is funded by the Aramco oil conglomerate, should be fully open and operational by the summer. — The Art Newspaper
Snøhetta won the design competition for the King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture a decade ago in 2008 and beat out rival proposals by Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas. The Art Newspaper quotes a spokesperson for the museum, saying: "The centre is undergoing its soft opening phase after [it... View full entry
Emerging from the desert landscape of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Zaha Hadid Architects' new King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (KAPSARC) recently opened its doors for the first time during Saudi Design Week 2017. With the late Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher as the architectural... View full entry
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans to build a new city on the Red Sea coast, promising a lifestyle not available in today’s Saudi Arabia as he seeks to remake the kingdom in a time of dwindling resources.
The prince said the city project, to be called “NEOM,” will operate independently from the “existing governmental framework” with investors consulted at every step during development. The project will be backed by more than $500 billion from the Saudi government [...].
— Bloomberg
The project is ambitious with a capital A: besides the mere challenge of building a new mega city in currently undeveloped desert terrain, the Saudi Crown Prince also envisions a new kind of society for NEOM — likely modeled on the 'free zone' concept that made Dubai flourish — whose "new way... View full entry
In a stunning move, seven Muslim countries—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Yemen, and the Maldives—have severed ties to Qatar, a small nation of about 2.7 million people on the north-east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The crisis underscores the deep divisions... View full entry
Completion of the world’s new tallest tower, Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, has been pushed back to 2019, its developer said yesterday.
Formerly known as Kingdom Tower, the structure is to reach more than a kilometre in height, which means it will surpass Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
Construction began in April 2014, and was to have finished in 2018. [...]
“The project was delayed... but it’ll open (in) 2019,” Prince Alwaleed said during a media visit to the site, reports AFP.
— globalconstructionreview.com
"Saudi Binladin Group has been hit by a fall in work brought by lower Saudi public spending following the collapse in oil revenues," GCR reports. "Last year workers in Mecca burned buses in protest over unpaid wages amid reports of mass lay-offs." View full entry