With offices in Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Nottinghamshire, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Singapore, Benoy has a wealth of international experience delivering projects of different scale across sectors. The firm features broad capabilities in architecture and building, experiential design, interior design and wayfinding, masterplanning, and urban design and landscape design.
In Saudi Arabia, the firm is currently working with the Al-Marqab Investment Company to deliver the Solitaire Riyadh, a 65,000sqm GLA mixed use/retail project that aims to reinvent retail as a vibrant urban district promoting social interaction. Here, Jason Saundalkar sits down with Jamie Webb, director and head of EMEA at Benoy to discuss the project’s design and delivery.
How did Benoy come to work on the Solitaire project in Riyadh? What was the tender/bidding process like and what were some of the reasons that your firm was chosen over others?
Benoy was selected over other firms due to our excellent track record of design in the Middle East. Since 2007, Benoy has built a strong presence in the Arabian Peninsula, with a growing portfolio of projects in the UAE, Bahrain and, more recently, Saudi Arabia.
Our interactions in Saudi Arabia have centered on delivering commercially successful design solutions tailored to the Kingdom’s cultural context, climatic conditions and strategic objectives. Indeed, the social, economic and environmental focus of our work aligns with Saudi Vision 2030, the country’s strategic framework first announced by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in 2016.
In particular, we’ve become highly adept at creating design solutions for projects in challenging and arid climates. Project Solitaire is located in one of the most arid places on Earth. So, our expertise in ‘making the uninhabitable habitable’ by designing pleasant and temperate urban environments played a key part in our successful project bid.
What was the client’s vision for the project and what were some of the key goals it wanted to achieve?
Solitaire is set to become an iconic retail destination for the Saudi capital. The client’s key ambition was to create something economically viable and environmentally sustainable, in alignment with the government’s 2030 strategic framework. To this end, there has been a strong focus on biophilia and greenspace within this new commercial district, which our sister landscape architecture business, Uncommon Land, has led.
Part of Vision 2030 is all about turning Riyadh into a green area. In the streets, there has been a great deal of tree planting. The government is trying to encourage healthy lifestyles for local people, and the planting of trees and greenery is designed to make the environment more livable. From day one, therefore, landscaping has been a crucial element of Project Solitaire. In the client’s words, it was essential to “plan and plant it right!”
How does this project differ to other key retail projects/districts in Saudi Arabia? What impact is the project expected to have in Riyadh?
Unlike other malls and commercial developments in Saudi Arabia, the majority of which are based on heavily airconditioned interiors, Solitaire seeks to provide an ‘environmentally controlled outdoor area’. The scheme, which is located in the north of the city, breaks from the traditional Riyadhi shopping mall typology to provide a dynamic, open-air environment complete with retail streets, plazas, boutiques and an elevated roof garden.
In Saudi Arabia, daytime temperatures can reach up to 55-degrees Celsius, meaning opportunities to spend time outside are limited. And with sweltering heat forcing people indoors for much of the year, the potential for sedentary, inactive and unhealthy living increases. Helping to overcome this challenge has become a priority for Project Solitaire, which supports quality-of-life transformation through outdoor activity, enabled by landscaping and re-examinations of urban form.
With Solitaire one of our core aims was to improve and promote thermal comfort. Through our architectural and landscape design interventions, we controlled the local environment, creating a microclimate that is conducive to human activity and outdoor living. For example, we explored options for natural shade creation through building elevations, massing and canopies. And, as explained below, we used wind, water and softscaping to cool the air, creating ambient temperatures in which people are happy to wander, browse and shop.
The project has quite a distinctive shape – what was the inspiration for the design of Solitaire? Did Benoy look at any of its past projects or others in the Kingdom?
Solitaire’s building design is based on the crystalline form of the geode – the spherical, cavitied rock commonly found in deserts. It’s a unique geometry that shapes Solitaire’s multiple facades, shifting planes and internal finishes across three levels of interconnected space.
As with all our designs in the region, we knew Solitaire required a careful balance. Mindful of place and culture, we always adapt and modulate our designs, embracing innovation while retaining traditional architectural features and flavours. In this way, our goal is to create vibrant modern environments that integrate with Saudi history, heritage and landscape.
What fresh learnings has the firm taken away from working on this project? What new ground did Benoy break as a result of working on this project?
The project is highly innovative in the strategies it deploys to maximise thermal comfort. For example, a unique feature of the development is its commitment to sustainable cooling via a series of wind towers. Within the towers, mechanical fan systems help to maintain amenable temperatures throughout the site’s internal zones. The job of these fans is to move rather than chill the air, producing a sustainable alternative to standard, energy intensive air conditioning.
In this way, we created a comfortable environment via passive cooling technology. And as visitors move from internal zones to external areas open to the climate, forced air systems ensure they remain protected from the desert heat.
In addition, enticing water features create a calming look and feel, while also contributing to cooling with their fine mist. The mist initially feeds the ambient humidity, then provides a natural cooling effect as mist-layered objects dry. Several waterfall and stream features enhance the public realm, creating respite areas which are the heart and soul of Solitaire.
What are some of the project’s unique sustainable features, what certifications (LEED etc) is it aiming for? What sort of savings are expected as a result of this focus on sustainability?
During the design of Solitaire, sustainability and sense of place – both vital ambitions for the project – became inextricably linked. Uncommon Land’s vision was to create a rich garden aesthetic, with the greening of the project site not only helping to manage challenging climatic conditions, but also create a totally unique destination.
Specific sustainability measures also helped to reinforce the cultural identity of the project. In the contemporary garden zone, all corten steel was removed from the retaining wall designs. Knowing that corten steel is unsustainable due to high levels of embodied carbon and heavy-duty construction requirements, the team opted instead for brick. Not only does brick have a carbon footprint roughly 5% that of steel, but it also has a much closer regional aesthetic and cultural fit. In an area with a rich history of mudbrick building, the brick walls express a deep appreciation of local craftsmanship and heritage. And an open-weave brickwork structure, combined with solid brickwork elements, allows for a constant flow of air through to the building’s basement levels.
The team also worked with local highways consultants to reduce traffic volumes around the garden area, which will become the external face of Solitaire.