King Abdullah City for Atomic and Nuclear Energy: Designing a City for the Post-Petroleum Era
- School of Architecture, Building and Design, Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor. Malaysia
Published in The Third NZAAR International Event Series on Natural and Built Environment, Cities, Sustainability and Advanced Engineering, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 15 July 2017, pages 1 to 4. New Zealand Academy of Applied Research. ISSN 2463-5979 (online), 2463-5960 (print). Indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, Conference Proceedings Citation Index (Clarivate).
Summary
From 2007 to 2014 the author was the Head of Eco-Masterplanning with the London-based practice of Llewelyn Davies Yeang – Architects and Planners. The firm produced a number of masterplans in Qatar, Libya, Turkey and India and in 2009 was invited to create an Ecomasterplan for King Abdulah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy. The ruling family in Saudi Arabia, increasingly aware that oil is a finite product wished to explore ideas for a future city that would function when the country’s oil wells run dry. They hired 12 international consortia paying each US $1.2million to produce designs. LDY headed one of the consortia and elected to design a city for a population of 250,000. This was not a move born out of immediate need for Saudi Arabia has proven reserves of 266 billion barrels according to government estimates submitted to the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (‘Annual Statistical Bulletin’, OPEC, 2015). If these figures are correct, Saudi Arabia’s reserves will last for another 70 years at an average production rate of 10.2 million barrels per day reported for 2015. Nevertheless it was regarded as prudent by the Saudi authorities to plan ahead. Research Question How would a city in Saudi Arabia function after the oil reserves of the country are expended? Methodology The methodology can be summarised as ‘Research by Design’. A team of 55 specialists was assembled. LDY in London and Kuala Lumpur collaborated with Buro Happold Engineers in Riyadh and London.
Rights
Copyright © New Zealand Academy of Applied Research Ltd 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduced in the GDI Academy archive from the original proceedings without change to the authors’ text.