Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners participated in a competition organised by Tadawul – the Saudi Stock Exchange – to design a new, 200m high, 52 storey headquarters building in the King Abdullah Financial District of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This design responds to a masterplan by Henning Larsen Architects for a new zone in the city and is at the edge of a proposed cluster of tall buildings. RSHP’s design responds to the complex geometry of this site and also aims to create an individual and unique identity in the Riyadh skyscape for the new building.
The extreme climate of Riyadh – where daytime temperatures can regularly reach well above 40 degrees centigrade every day – offers particular challenges for the design of tall office buildings. RSHP’s response addresses this extreme climate by creating a building which has a protective outer layer that shades the working and communal areas inside. The design of the external screening draws upon traditional elements of Arabian architecture but with a highly contemporary reinterpretation. The arrangement of internal spaces – with wide, relatively column-free and self-supporting 27-metre floorplates and communal garden areas on every fifth floor – seek to engender a sense of community and a productive and efficient working environment for stock exchange employees as well as those working in the offices above. This arrangement also offers a high degree of flexibility to the use of the office space over time. The perimeter uses a structural braced system and the core is designed to serve the building rather than to enclose a structural system. Columns are located on the diagonals. This diagonal core allows the creation of an internal, vertical community, articulated by people moving across or between floors.
A triple-height, generous public atrium marks the ground floor entrance area. This is built around a sunken garden and water feature, creating the impression of an ‘oasis’ within the building and contrasting strongly with the desert landscape that can be seen in the distance outside. The atrium links via escalators to the building lobby, the stock exchange trading floors and other operational facilities above. From the lobby, glass elevators – oriented diagonally across opposite side of the tower – transport staff and visitors to their required floors. The lobby itself acts as a ‘window’ onto the stock exchange trading area, as well as to the adjacent financial plaza, which has been designed for exhibitions and other events and through which an auditorium can be accessed. Looking up from the lobby, visitors are able to view a spectacular vertical landscape with hanging plants. The top five storeys of the building form a spectacular internal garden area for staff to meet and relax.
Tadawul will occupy the lower 14 storeys of the building while the upper floors will be let to a range of occupiers.
