Goettsch Partners, Chicago, designed a new five-star, 214-room hotel for the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The design-build project, with Saudi Oger Ltd. as contractor and Rayadah Investment Co. as developer, has a three-story podium supporting a 17-story glass tower with a nine-story opening that allows light to penetrate the mass of the building. Every project within the 400-acre KAFD must be faceted in design, so the hotels slender north façade has an undulating skin composed of semitransparent glass and aluminum curtain wall with two layers of ceramic frits to create a moiré effect. The buildings south faaçde will be clad in stone to block the regions extreme sun and heat. The east and west faaçdes feature a saw-tooth design with continuous slab edges. The $130 million project is scheduled for completion in 2011 and should earn LEED certification.
Related Stories
| May 7, 2012
Best AEC Firms: MHTN Architects nine decades of dedication to Utah
This 65-person design firm has served Salt Lake City and the state of Utah for the better part of 90 years.
| May 7, 2012
2012 BUILDING TEAM AWARDS: TD Ameritrade Park
The new stadium for the College World Series in Omaha combines big-league amenities within a traditional minor league atmosphere.
| May 7, 2012
2012 BUILDING TEAM AWARDS: Fort Belvoir Community Hospital
A new military hospital invokes evidence-based design to create a LEED-certified facility for the nation’s soldiers and their families.
| May 7, 2012
2012 BUILDING TEAM AWARDS: Audie L. Murphy VA Hospital
How a Building Team created a high-tech rehabilitation center for wounded veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
| May 3, 2012
2012 BUILDING TEAM AWARDS: Rush University Medical Center
This fully integrated Building Team opted for a multi-prime contracting strategy to keep construction going on Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, despite the economic meltdown.
| May 3, 2012
U of Michigan team looking to create highly efficient building envelope designs
The system combines the use of sensors, novel construction materials, and utility control software in an effort to create technology capable of reducing a building’s carbon footprint.
| May 3, 2012
Best commercial modular buildings and marketing programs recognized
Judges scored entries on architectural excellence, technical innovation, cost effectiveness, energy efficiency, and calendar days to complete.
| May 3, 2012
Zero Energy Research Lab opens at North Texas
The living lab—the only one of its kind in Texas—is designed to test various technologies and systems in order to achieve a net-zero consumption of energy.
| May 3, 2012
NSF publishes ANSI standard evaluating the sustainability of single ply roofing membranes
New NSF Standard provides manufacturers, specifiers and building industry with verifiable, objective criteria to identify sustainable roofing products.