Riyadh’s metro network, the most modern and luxurious in the world, which began operating on 1 December with the opening of its blue, yellow and purple lines (lines 1, 4 and 6), will ease traffic, reduce travel times and improve the quality of life for Riyadh’s growing population of nearly 8 million in its metropolitan area.
With the world’s longest driverless transport system, this transport network stretches 176 kilometres across 6 lines and 85 stations, connecting key districts, business centres and cultural attractions in the Saudi capital.
The Riyadh Metro, an automated rapid transit system, will meet the needs of residents and visitors. With a capacity of 3.6 million passengers per day, the network will reduce the number of car trips in the city and encourage the use of sustainable modes of transport.
The King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) metro station, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), is the main interchange in the new network, connecting the KAFD terminal to King Khalid International Airport and providing access to the local KAFD monorail.
The station’s six platforms, spread over four levels, connect to bus services and park-and-ride facilities to create a major multimodal transport hub for the city as well as indoor and outdoor public plazas for the business district.
Contributing to the identity of Riyadh’s new metro system, the design of the KAFD metro station prioritises connectivity. The rail, car and pedestrian traffic planned for the station has been modelled, mapped and structured to optimise internal circulation and avoid congestion.
The configuration is a three-dimensional grid defined by a sequence of opposing sine waves (generated from the repetition and frequency variation of the station’s daily traffic flows), which act as the backbone of the building’s circulation.
These sinuous waves extend to the station’s exterior, which is clad in high-performance concrete panels. Geometric perforations in the façade reduce solar gain as a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional environmental protection within the vernacular architecture of the region.
The composition of the station’s façade echoes the patterns generated by desert winds in the sand, where multiple frequencies and reverberation generate the complex repetition of patterns evident in the natural world.
The KAFD metro station is composed of a set of highly correlated elements through repetition, symmetry and scale.
The design was continuously optimised by ZHA throughout its development to increase structural efficiency and environmental performance, while simplifying the construction process without compromising spatial quality; seamlessly integrating the self-supporting structure of its external envelope with the internal station structure supporting the platforms and viaducts.
The station, which offers optimal comfort with minimal energy consumption, combines an efficient passive design with a highly efficient cooling system that runs on renewable energy and automatically adjusts to the number of passengers throughout the day, while sliding door panels on each platform retain cold air inside the station.
La estación de metro de KAFD ha obtenido la certificación de oro Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) del US Green Building Council.
Project: King Abdullah Financial District Metro Station Riad.
Arquitects: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA).
ZHA Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher.
ZHA Project Principal: Gianluca Racana.
ZHA Project Director: Filippo Innocenti.
ZHA Project Architect: Gian Luca Barone.
ZHA Project Associate: Fulvio Wirz.
ZHA Construction Support Leads: Marco Amoroso, Domenico di Francesco.
ZHA Construction Support Services: Vincenzo Caputo, Abdel Halim Chehab, Marko Gligorov, Stefano Iacopini.
ZHA Project Team: Marco Amoroso, Vincenzo Caputo, Abdel Halim Chehab, Lee Cubeddu, Rawan Al-Derjem, Domenico Di Francesco, David Fogliano, Manuele Gaioni, Marko Gligorov, Subharthi Guha, Alexandros Kallegias, Lisa Kinnerud, Alexandre Kuroda, Stefano Iacopini, Carolina López-Blanco, Jamie Mann, Mohammadali Mirzaei, Arian Hakimi Nejad, David Wolthers, Nicola McConnell, Mario Mattia, Massimo Napoleoni, Niki Okala, Carlos Parraga-Botero, Sohith Perera, Izis Salvador Pinto, Carine Posner, Neil Rigden, Paola Salcedo, Nima.
Shoja, Thomas Sonder, Vincenzo Reale, Kate Revyakina, Roberto Vangeli, Seungho Yeo.
ZHA Competition Team: Alexandre Kuroda, Fei Wang, Lisa Kinnerud, Jorge Mendez-Caceres.
Structural Engineer: BuroHappold.
Building Services Engineer: BuroHappold.
Transport & Civil Engineers: BuroHappold.
Fire Protection & Life Safety Engineer: BuroHappold.
People Flow: BuroHappold.
Acoustic Consultant: BuroHappold.
Sustainability Consultant: BuroHappold.
Lighting Consultant: BuroHappold.
Façade Engineering: Newtecnic.
Design Management: AECOM.
Specification Consultant: AECOM.
Cost Consultant: AECOM.
Signage & Way Finding: Transport Design Consultancy.
Safety Assessment: BH with Transsol.
Development Engineer: Riyadh Metro Transit Consultants (RMTC).
Main Contractor: BACS Consortium.
Independent Checking Engineer: Buro Veritas.
Independant Safety Assessor: TÜV Rheinland / ISARail Group.
Transit Systems: Line 1 Siemens (BACS), Line 4&6 Alstom (FAST).
Viaducts: AECOM & TriPod-ssd (Line1), Atkins (Line 4&6).
Automatic Fare Collection: Indra.
Structure Contractor: Saudi Lebanese Tarouk Contracting.
MEP Contractor: Zamil.
Interiors Contractor: DEPA.
Elevators and Escalators: ThyssenKrupp.
Facade Contractor: Permasteelisa Gartner Saudi Arabia.
Landscape Contractor: DEPA.
Fotografía: Hufton + Crow.
Zaha Hadid
The pioneering vision of Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) redefined 21st century architecture and captured the imagination of the world. Each of her projects transformed notions of what can be achieved in concrete, steel and glass, combining her unwavering optimism for the future and belief in the power of invention with breakthrough innovations in design, materials and construction.
Many architects are asked to create new projects that stand as symbols of social progress, but none did it as regularly, as unexpectedly and as spectacularly as Zaha Hadid. Her successes were so consistent that she received the highest honours from civic, academic and professional institutions around the world. His studio remains one of the most creative in the world, and has been for almost 40 years.
Born in Baghdad (Iraq) in 1950, Zaha Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before moving to London in 1972 to attend the Architectural Association (AA) School, where she received the Diploma Award in 1977.
Hadid taught at the AA School until 1987 and held numerous professorships and visiting professorships at universities around the world, including Columbia, Harvard, Yale and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. She founded Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979 and was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004.
Experiencing Hadid’s architecture makes one realise that the pursuit of beauty alone was not her modus operandi. Her buildings are beautiful – and beauty may explain their seductive urban presence, their power of attraction – but the beauty and virtuosity of her work is linked to meaning. His architecture is inventive, original and civic, and offers generous public spaces that are clearly organised and intuitive.
Each of Hadid’s buildings goes down in architectural history for its virtuoso construction, architectural ideology and magnetic presence. Her designs are the embodiment of an enlightened philosophical framework and a principled discipline.
Her clients commissioned buildings from her, and Hadid delivered on the programmes, but she also exceeded every brief and realised the shared aspirations of a new generation.
Zaha Hadid’s work has been the subject of critically acclaimed exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2006, the Design Museum in London in 2007, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in 2015 and the Serpentine Galleries in London in 2016.
Hadid’s extraordinary contribution to the architectural profession has been recognised by professional, academic and civic institutions around the world, including the Forbes List of the “World’s Most Powerful Women” and the Japan Art Association, which awarded her the “Praemium Imperiale”. In 2010 and 2011, her designs were awarded the Stirling Prize, one of the highest awards in architecture, by the Royal Institute of British Architects. UNESCO named her “Artist for Peace”, the French Republic decorated her with the “Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” and TIME magazine included her among the “100 most influential people in the world”, naming her the most important thinker of 2010. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II made Zaha Hadid a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in February 2016 she was awarded the Royal Gold Medal.
Zaha Hadid passed away on 31 March 2016.
Text: Zaha Hadid Architects. .
Zaha Hadid Architects
101 Goswell Road
London EC1V 7EZ
+44 20 7253 5147
www.zaha-hadid.com
Project by Zaha Hadid Architects
