King Abdullah Financial District - parcel 2.08

For the City of Riyadh, the King Abdullah Financial District is a new development, being undertaken by the Rayadah Investment Corporation on behalf of the Pension Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, consisting of over one hundred parcels, a new monorail system, as well as numerous civic and infrastructure projects.

Initially involved in the district master planning with Henning Larsen Architects, we are now currently working with Will Bruder Partners Ltd on the next phase of parcel development. Parcel 2.08 includes four levels of below grade parking, a 7-story office tower, and 16-story residential tower.

Services provided by us included structural engineering, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering, fire engineering, facade engineering, architectural lighting/ground engineering, and sustainability/LEED consulting, and security/information technology consulting.

Guided by masterplan requirements for dynamic facades for certain elevations of the parcel and reduction of cost and complexity to the overall installation, Happold Lighting proposed a low resolution abstract LED facade lighting scheme designed to give subtle movement across the vertical shade screen of the residential tower and the horizontal shade screen of the office towers.

Rather than produce a content driven media screen, requiring frequent updates and specific video mapping, Happold Lighting developed the active facade of randomly patterned arrays of linear LED pixels which utilizes several set videos derived from natural sky sources (blue-grey cloud, star patterns, sand drifting).

Upon completion in 2012, the project will achieve LEED Gold certification.

• 7-story office tower
• 16-story residential tower
• 4-level below grade parking
• LEED Gold

Related Disciplines

• Structural engineering
• Building services engineering
• Fire engineering
• Facades
• Lighting
• Sustainability
• Safe & secure
• IT communications & control
• Geotechnical