Haramain High Speed Rail

Stretching between Mecca and Medinah via Jeddah and King Abdullah Economic City, the brand new 460km long Haramain High Speed Rail project is a bold step towards a truly connected Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our team have designed the four main stations, combining efficiency and aestethics into landmarks for the cities they are serving.

This revolutionary transport system will radically change the way Saudi Arabians interact with their country, uniting the two most important religious cities in the region. Producing the cornerstone of this transformatory network on an incredibly tight programme created a significant challenge for our team.

The key to delivering such a phenomenally complex design in such a short period of time was the creation of a flexible modular design. A core team were co-located with the architect to develop the concept design and modular details, which were then disseminated to our regional teams to incorporate into the design. The scale of the stations is difficult to imagine - each of the platforms is over a quarter of a mile long. This modular approach has allowed our team to deliver these tremendous stations on a lean schedule, whilst allowing flexibility in everything from the spatial organisation to the incorporation of traditional motifs.

Challenging the brief to produce more efficient buildings is something we are proud to do. A key development in this project was the creation of a model that provides a natural ventilation solution to cooling the station platforms. Imagine no need for air conditioning in a desert country: the energy savings are incredible. To compliment this system, our teams also optimised the number of roof lights to allow the stations to be naturally lit for as long as possible without any overheating and carefully considered ways to reduce energy and water use throughout all four stations, to create buildings for the now and for the future.

These four unique stations will form the backbone of Saudi Arabia’s new transport era. Virtually futureproof, Jeddah Station is designed to handle more passengers per year in 2042 than pass through the whole of Heathrow Airport in London. Our team are proud to have been instrumental in the design of these monumental stations.

• 460km long
• Four unique stations

Related Disciplines

• Structural engineering
• Building services engineering
• Acoustics
• IT communications & control
• People movement
• Urban development
• People movement