King Abdullah Financial District

Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (2009)

King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh is a complete new infrastructure providing new way of working environment. The masterplan provides a fully integrated public transport for the development, which can be linked together with the proposed city monorail system.  The proposed scheme was submitted via SCOMI Int. Ltd. for a tender bid back in 2009.  The design of the monorail structure and the stations compliments and blends well into the architectural styles of the whole city.

The architectural design concept of the station has given an attempt to blend into overall KAFD architectural design intent.  An ultra-modern, neat, light and transparence built-form with sophisticated material and installation techniques is being adopted to co-exist with the overall masterplan geometry- a futuristic free-form, minimalistic and high transparency. The unique form appeared as a ‘folding plane’ to express its horizontality.  The roof form is achieved using a simple steel truss work which is concealed by the ‘Titanium Zink’ at outer layer and aluminum spandrel ceiling at inner layer.

The multi faceted and undulating ‘Titanium Zink’ roofing sheet is ‘sliced’ and ‘slides’ side by side to create the intricate relief of openings along the undulating edge.  The relief tracks along the edge allow the formation of skylight at various apertures to capture diffused and reflected penetration of natural daylight into station interior. The vertical element which is the wall is ‘disappeared’ with the application of ‘Light blue tinted double glazed curtain wall’. The primary goal is to create a sense of delight and exotic beauty around current available technologies by contextualizing them and amplifying their potential atmospheric and spatial effects.